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ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 


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ACCEPTING 
THE  UNIVERSE 

ESSAYS  IJ^  J^ATURALISM 

BY 

JOHN  BURROUGHS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  IVUFFLIN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,   BY  JOHN   BURROUGHS 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERYXD 


6D 


And  heard  great  argument 

About  it  and  about :  but  evermore 

Came  out  by  the  same  door  wherein  I  went. 

THE  rubaiyXt 


PREFACE 

AWHEEL  may  have  many  spokes,  but  can 
have  but  one  hub.  So  I  may  say  of  this  vol- 
ume of  mine  that  there  are  many  themes  and 
chapter-headings,  but  there  is  but  one  central 
thought  into  which  they  all  converge,  and  that  is 
that  the  universe  is  good,  and  that  it  is  our  rare 
good  fortune  to  form  a  part  of  it.  As  this  collection 
of  essays  does  not  aim  to  be  a  systematic  treatise  on 
any  one  theme,  but  rather  a  series  of  sallies,  excur- 
sions, into  the  world  of  semi-philosophical  specula- 
tion, there  is  inevitably  much  repetition;  there  may 
even  be  some  contradiction.  But  I  have  concluded 
to  let  them  stand,  as  I  find  myself  an  interested 
spectator  of  the  workings  of  my  own  mind  when,  in 
following  different  roads,  it  arrives  at  the  same 
truth.  As  all  roads  lead  to  Rome,  so  in  the  realm  in 
which  my  mind  works  in  this  volume,  all  roads  lead 
to  the  conclusion  that  this  is  the  best  possible  world, 
and  these  people  in  it  are  the  best  possible  people. 
The  heart  of  Nature  is  sound.  I  feel  toward  the 
great  Mother  somewhat  as  a  man  does  who  takes 
out  a  policy  in  an  insurance  company:  he  believes 
the  company  is  solvent  and  will  meet  its  obligations. 
I  look  upon  the  universe  as  solvent  and  worthy  of 

vii 


PREFACE 

trust.  In  other  words  this  is  a  book  of  radical  opti- 
mism. It  might  be  described  as  an  attempt  to  jus- 
tify the  ways  of  God  to  man  on  natural  grounds. 

My  reader  need  hardly  be  told  that  theological 
grounds  do  not  count  with  me.  I  want  nothing  less 
than  a  faith  founded  upon  a  rock,  faith  in  the  con- 
stitution of  things.  The  various  man-made  creeds 
are  fictitious,  like  the  constellations  —  Orion,  Cas- 
siopeia's Chair,  the  Big  Dipper;  the  only  thing  real 
in  them  is  the  stars,  and  the  only  thing  real  in  the 
creeds  is  the  soul's  aspiration  toward  the  Infinite. 
This  abides,  though  creeds  and  dogmas  change  or 
vanish,  v 

Empedocles  says: 

"  O,  wretched  he  whose  care 
Is  shadowy  speculation  on  the  gods." 

But  is  not  speculation  better  than  indifference? 
Curiosity  about  the  gods  may  lead  to  a  better 
acquaintance  with  them.  I  feel  that  each  of  these 
chapters  might  be  called  an  altar  to  the  Unknown 
God. 

John  Burroughs 


CONTENTS 

I.  Shall  we  Accept  the  Universe?  3 

II.  Manifold  Nature  19 

III.  Each  for  its  Own  Sake  30 

IV.  The  Universal  Beneficence  54 

V.  The  Good  Devils  73 

VI.  The  Natural  Providence  90 

Vn.  The  Faith  of  a  Naturalist  112 

Vin.  A  Fallacy  made  in  Germany  134 

IX.  The  Price  of  Development  138 

X.  Tooth  and  Claw  158 

XI.  Men  and  Trees  173 

XII.  The  Problem  of  Evil  193  t/ 

XIII.  Horizon  Lines: 

I.   THE  origin  of  LIFE  203 
n.   THE  LIVING  AND  NON-LIVING  WORLDS  205  ^ 

in.   THE  ORGANIZING  TENDENCY  207  iT 

TV.    SCIENCE  AND  MYSTICISM  21 1 

V.    IS  THERE  DESIGN  IN  NATURE?  219  \^ 

VI.    OUR  IMPARTIAL  MOTHER  225 

VII.    BAFFLING  TRUTHS  226 

Vni.    SENSE  CONTRADICTIONS  230 

IX.    MAN  A  PART  OF  NATURE  233  ^ 

X.  THE  FITTEST  TO  SURVIVE  237 

ix 


CONTENTS 
Xni.   Horizon  Lines  (continued) : 

XI.  THE  POWER  OF  CHOICE 

XII.  ILLUSIONS 

XIII.  IS  NATURE  SUICIDAL? 

XIV.  THE  PERSISTENCE  OF  ENERGY 

XrV.  Soundings: 

I.   THE  GREAT  MYSTERY 
II.   THE  NATURAL  ORDER 
*"*»o         in,    LOGIC  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS 
IV.    A  CHIP  FROM  THE  OLD  BLOCK 
V.    A  PERSONAL  GOD 
VI.    THE  ETERNAL 
VII,    AN  IMPARTIAL  DEITY 
Vni.    FINITE  AND  INFINITE 
IX.   THE  INSOLUBLE 
X.   PAYING  THE  DEBT 
XI.   DEATH 
XII.   HEAVEN  AND  EARTH 

XIII.  THINKING  AND  ACTING 

XIV.  THE  TIDE  OF  LIFE 

XV,    FAITH  FOUNDED  UPON  A  ROCK 

XV.  The  Poet  of  the  Cosmos 

The  frontispiece,  showing  Mr.  Burroughs  at 
his  woodpile  at  Riverby,  is  from  a  photograph 
taken  in  1920  by  Mr.  Herbert  S.  Ardell 


238 

/ 

239 

242 

i/ 

245 

253 

257 » 

261 

^/ 

205 

266 

270 

275 

278 

280 

282 

288 

293 

290 

304 

309 

316 

ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 


SHALL  WE  ACCEPT  THE  UNIVERSE? 

I 

IT  is  reported  of  Margaret  Fuller  that  she  said 
she  accepted  the  universe.  "  Gad,  she'd  better!" 
retorted  Carlyle.  Carlyle  himself  did  not  accept 
the  universe  in  a  very  whole-hearted  manner.  Look- 
ing up  at  the  midnight  stars,  he  exclaimed:  "A  sad 
spectacle!  If  they  be  inhabited,  what  a  scope  for 
misery  and  folly;  if  they  be  na  inhabited,  what  a 
waste  of  space!" 

It  ought  not  to  be  a  hard  thing  to  accept  the 
universe,  since  it  appears  to  be  a  fixture,  and  we 
have  no  choice  in  the  matter;  but  I  have  found  it 
worth  while  to  look  the  gift  in  the  mouth,  and  con- 
vince myself  that  it  is  really  worth  accepting.  It 
were  a  pity  to  go  through  life  with  a  suspicion  in 
one's  mind  that  it  might  have  been  a  better  uni- 
verse, and  that  some  wrong  has  been  done  us  be- 
cause we  have  no  freedom  of  choice  in  the  matter. 
The  thought  would  add  a  tinge  of  bitterness  to  all 
our  days.  And  so,  after  living  more  than  four  score 
years  in  the  world,  and  pondering  long  and  intently 
upon  the  many  problems  which  life  and  nature 
present,  I  have  come,  like   Margaret  Fuller,  to 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

accept  the  universe,  have  come  frankly  to  ac- 
cept that  first  verdict  pronounced  upon  creation, 
namely,  that  it  is  very  good  —  good  in  its  sura 
total  up  to  this  astronomic  date,  whatever  phases 
it  may  at  times  present  that  lead  us  to  a  contrary 
conclusion. 

Not  that  cold  and  hunger,  war  and  pestilence, 
tornadoes  and  earthquakes,  are  good  in  a  positive 
sense,  but  that  these  and  kindred  things  are  vastly 
overbalanced  by  the  forces  and  agencies  that 
make  for  our  well-being,  —  that  "work  together  for 
good,"  —  the  sunshine,  the  cooling  breezes,  the 
fertile  soil,  the  stability  of  land  and  sea,  the  gentle 
currents,  the  equipoise  of  the  forces  of  the  earth,  air, 
and  water,  the  order  and  security  of  our  solar  sys- 
tem, and,  in  the  human  realm,  the  good-will  and 
fellowship  that  are  finally  bound  to  prevail  among 
men  and  nations. 

In  remote  geologic  ages,  before  the  advent  of 
man,  when  the  earth's  crust  was  less  stable,  when 
the  air  was  yet  loaded  with  poisonous  gases,  when 
terrible  and  monstrous  animal  forms  held  high 
carnival  in  the  sea  and  upon  the  land,  it  was  not  in 
the  same  sense  good  —  good  for  beings  constructed 
as  we  are  now.  In  future  astronomic  time,  when  the 
earth's  air  and  water  and  warmth  shall  have  dis- 
appeared —  a  time  which  science  predicts  —  and 
all  life  upon  the  globe  fails,  again  it  will  not  be  good. 
But  in  our  geologic,  biologic,  and  astronomic  age, 
4 


SHALL  WE  ACCEPT  THE  UNIVERSE? 

notwithstanding  the  fact  that  cold  and  sufiPering, 
war  and  pestilence,  cyclones  and  earthquakes,  still 
occur  upon  the  relatively  tiny  ball  that  carries  us 
through  the  vast  sidereal  spaces,  good  is  greatly 
in  the  ascendancy.  The  voyage  is  not  all  calm  and 
sunshine,  but  it  is  safe,  and  the  dangers  from  colli- 
sion and  shipwreck  are  very  remote.  It  is  a  vast  and 
lonely  sea  over  which  we  are  journeying,  no  other 
ships  hail  us  and  bid  us  Godspeed,  no  messages, 
wireless  or  other,  may  reach  us  from  other  shores, 
or  other  seas;  forces  and  influences  do  play  upon  us 
from  all  parts  of  the  empyrean,  but,  so  far  as  we  are 
aware,  no  living  thing  on  other  spheres  takes  note 
of  our  going  or  our  coming. 

In  our  practical  lives  we  are  compelled  to  sepa- 
rate good  from  evil  —  the  one  being  that  which 
favors  our  well-being,  and  the  other  that  which  an- 
tagonizes it;  but,  viewed  as  a  whole,  the  universe 
is  all  good;  it  is  an  infinite  complex  of  compensations 
out  of  which  worlds  and  systems  of  worlds,  and  all 
which  they  hold,  have  emerged,  and  are  emerging, 
and  will  emerge.  This  is  not  the  language  of  the 
heart  or  of  the  emotions  —  our  anthropomorphism 
cries  out  against  it  —  but  it  is  the  language  of 
serene,  impartial  reason.  It  is  good  for  us  occasion- 
ally to  get  outside  the  sphere  of  our  personal  life 
and  view  things  as  they  are  in  and  of  themselves.  A 
great  demand  is  made  upon  our  faith  —  faith  in  the 
absolute  trustworthiness  of  human  reason,  and  in 
5 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

the  final  beneficence  of  the  forces  that  rule  this 
universe.  Not  to  solve  the  mysteries,  but  to  see  that 
they  are  insoluble,  and  to  rest  content  in  that  con- 
clusion, is  the  task  we  set  ourselves  here. 

Evidently  the  tide  of  life  is  still  at  the  flood  on 
this  planet;  its  checks  and  counter-currents  arise  in- 
evitably in  a  universe  whose  forces  are  always,  and 
always  must  be,  in  unstable  equilibrium. 

The  love  of  the  Eternal  for  mankind,  and  for  all 
other  forms  of  life,  is  not  a  parental  love  —  not  the 
love  of  the  mother  for  her  chUd,  or  of  the  father  for 
his  son;  it  is  more  like  the  love  which  a  general  has 
for  his  army;  he  is  to  lead  that  army  through  hard- 
ships, through  struggles,  through  sufferings,  and 
through  death,  but  he  is  leading  it  to  victory.  Many 
will  perish  that  others  may  live;  the  battle  is  being 
won  daily.  Evolution  has  triumphed.  It  has  been  a 
long  and  desperate  battle,  but  here  we  are  and  we 
find  life  sweet.  The  antagonistic  forces  which  have 
been  overcome  have  become  sources  of  power.  The 
vast  army  of  living  forms  moving  down  the  geologic 
ages  has  been  made  strong  through  the  trials  and 
obstacles  it  has  surmounted,  till  now  we  behold  it  in 
the  fullness  of  its  power  with  man  at  its  head. 

II 
There  is  a  paragraph  in  Emerson's  Journal  on 
Providence,  written  when  he  was  twenty-one,  which 
is  as  broad  and  as  wise  and  as  heterodox  as  any- 

6 


SHALL  WE  ACCEPT  THE  UNIVERSE?' 

tiling  he  ever  wrote.  The  Providence  he  depicts  is 
the  Providence  I  see  in  Nature : 

"Providence  supports,  but  does  not  spoil  its 
children.  We  are  called  sons,  not  darlings,  of  the 
Deity.  There  is  ever  good  in  store  for  those  who 
love  it;  knowledge  for  those  who  seek  it;  and  if  we 
do  evil,  we  suffer  the  consequences  of  evil.  Through- 
out the  administration  of  the  world  there  is  the 
same  aspect  of  stern  kindness;  of  good  against  your 
will;  good  against  your  good;  ten  thousand  channels 
of  active  beneficence,  but  all  flowing  with  the  same 
regard  to  general,  not  particular  profit.  .  .  .  And 
to  such  an  extent  is  this  great  statute  policy  of  God 
carried,  that  many,  nay,  most,  of  the  great  bless- 
ings of  humanity  require  cycles  of  a  thousand  years 
to  bring  them  to  their  height." 

A  remarkable  statement  to  be  made  in  1824,  ia 
New  England,  and  by  a  fledgling  preacher  of  the 
orthodox  faith  and  the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of 
orthodox  clergymen.  It  is  as  broad  and  as  impartial 
as  science,  and  yet  makes  a  strong  imaginative  ap- 
peal. Good  at  the  heart  of  Nature  is  the  purport  of 
it,  not  the  patent-right  good  of  the  creeds,  but  good, 
free  to  all  who  love  it,  a  "stern  kindness,"  and  no 
partial,  personal,  vacillating  Providence  whose  ear 
is  open  only  to  the  password  of  some  sect  or  cult, 
or  organization  —  "good  against  your  good,"  your 
copyrighted  good,  your  personal,  selfish  good  (unless 
it  is  in  line  with  equal  good  to  others),  the  broad, 
7 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

nniversal  beneficence  of  Nature  which  brought  us 
here  and  keeps  us  here,  and  showers  its  good  upon 
us  as  long  as  we  keep  in  right  relations  with  it;  but 
which  goes  its  appointed  way  regardless  of  the  sore 
needs  of  warring  nations  or  the  desperate  straits  of 
struggling  men.  That  is  the  Providence  that  lasts, 
that  does  not  change  its  mind,  that  is  not  indulgent, 
that  does  not  take  sides,  that  is  without  variable- 
ness or  shadow  of  turning.  Suppose  the  law  of 
gravity  were  changeable,  or  the  law  of  chemical  re- 
actions, or  the  nature  of  fire,  or  air,  or  water,  or 
cohesion?  Gravity  never  sleeps  nor  varies,  yet  see 
bodies  rise,  see  others  fall,  see  the  strong  master  of 
the  weak,  see  the  waters  flow  and  the  ground  stay. 
The  laws  of  fluids  are  fixed,  but  see  the  variety  of 
their  behavior,  the  forms  in  which  they  crystallize, 
their  solvent  power,  their  stability  or  instability, 
their  capacity  to  absorb  or  conduct  heat  —  flux 
and  change  everywhere  amid  fixity  and  law.  Nature 
is  infinitely  variable,  which  opens  the  door  to  all 
forms  of  life;  her  goings  and  comings  are  on  such  a 
large  scale,  like  the  rains,  the  dews,  the  sunlight,  that 
all  creatures  get  an  equal  benefit.  She  sows  her  seed 
with  such  a  generous  hand  that  enough  of  them 
are  bound  to  fall  upon  fertile  places.  Such  as  are 
very  limited  in  range,  like  those  of  the  swamp  plants, 
are  yet  cast  forth  upon  the  wind  so  liberally  that 
sooner  or  later  some  of  them  fall  upon  conditions 
suitable  to  them.  Nature  will  cover  a  whole  town- 
8 


SHALL  WE  ACCEPT  THE  UNIVERSE? 

ship  with  her  wind-sown  seeds  in  order  to  be 
sure  that  she  hits  the  small  swamp  in  one  corner 
of  it. 

A  stream  of  energy,  not  described  by  the  ad- 
jective "inexhaustible,"  bears  the  universe  along, 
and  all  forms  of  life,  man  with  the  rest,  take  their 
chances  amid  its  currents  and  its  maelstroms.  The 
good  Providence  shows  itself  in  the  power  of  adap- 
tation which  all  forms  of  life  possess.  Some  forms  of 
sea-weed  or  sea-grass  grow  where  the  waves  pound 
the  shore  incessantly.  How  many  frail  marine  crea- 
tures are  wrecked  upon  the  shore,  but  how  many 
more  are  not  wrecked!  How  many  ships  go  down 
in  the  sea,  but  how  many  more  are  wafted  safely 
over  it! 

The  Providence  in  Nature  seems  intent  only  on 
playing  the  game,  irrespective  of  the  stakes,  which  to 
us  seem  so  important.  Whatever  the  issue.  Nature 
is  the  winner.  She  cannot  lose.  Her  benejScence  is 
wholesale.  Her  myriad  forms  of  life  are  constantly 
passing  through  "the  curtain  of  fire"  of  her  inor- 
ganic forces,  and  the  casualties  are  great,  but  the 
majority  get  through.  The  assault  goes  on  and  will 
ever  go  on.  It  is  like  a  stream  of  water  that  is  whole 
and  individual  at  every  point,  but  fixed  and  stable 
at  no  point.  To  play  the  game,  to  keep  the  currents 
going  —  from  the  depths  of  sidereal  space  to  the 
shallow  pool  by  the  roadside;  from  the  rise  and  fall 
of  nations,  to  the  brief  hour  of  the  minute  summer 
9 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

insects,  the  one  overarching  purpose  seems  to  be  to 
give  free  rein  to  life,  to  play  one  form  against  an- 
other, to  build  up  and  tear  down,  to  gather  to- 
gether and  to  scatter  —  no  rest,  no  end,  nothing 
final  —  rocks  decaying  to  build  more  rocks,  worlds 
destroyed  to  build  more  worlds,  nations  disintegrat- 
ing to  build  more  nations,  organisms  perishing  to 
feed  more  organisms,  life  playing  into  the  hands  of 
death  everywhere,  and  death  playing  into  the  hands 
of  life,  sea  and  land  interchanging,  tropic  and  arctic 
meeting  and  mingling,  day  and  night,  winter  and 
summer  chasing  each  other  over  the  earth  —  what 
a  spectacle  of  change,  what  a  drama  never  com- 
pleted! Vast  worlds  and  systems  in  fiery  flux;  one 
little  corner  of  the  cosmos  teeming  with  life,  vast 
areas  of  it,  like  Saturn  and  Jupiter,  dead  and  barren 
through  untold  millions  of  years;  collisions  and  dis- 
ruptions in  the  heavens,  tornadoes  and  earthquakes 
and  wars  and  pestilence  upon  the  earth  —  surely 
it  all  sounds  worse  than  it  is,  for  we  are  all  here  to 
see  and  contemplate  the  great  spectacle;  it  sounds 
worse  than  it  is  to  us  because  we  are  a  part  of  the 
outcome  of  all  these  raging  and  conflicting  forces. 
Whatever  has  failed,  we  have  succeeded,  and  the 
beneficent  forces  are  still  coming  our  way.  As  I 
write  these  lines  I  see  my  neighbor  and  his  boys 
gathering  the  hay  from  the  meadows  and  building 
it  into  a  great  stack  beside  their  glutted  barns.  I 
see  a  chipmunk  carrying  stores  to  his  den,  I  see 
10 


SHALL  WE  ACCEPT  THE  UNIVERSE? 

butterflies  dancing  by  on  painted  wings,  I  see  and 
hear  the  happy  birds,  and  the  August  sun  beams 
his  best  upon  all  the  land. 

The  greatest  of  human  achievements  and  the 
most  precious  is  that  of  the  great  creative  artist. 
In  words,  in  color,  in  sounds,  in  forms,  man  comes 
nearest  to  emulating  the  Creative  Energy  itself. 
It  seems  as  if  the  pleasure  and  the  purpose  of 
the  Creative  Energy  were  endless  invention  —  to 
strike  out  new  forms,  to  vary  perpetually  the  pat- 
tern. She  presents  myriads  of  forms,  myriads  of 
types,  inexhaustible  variety  in  air,  earth,  water,  ten 
thousand  ways  to  achieve  the  same  end,  a  prodi- 
gality of  means  that  bewilders  the  mind;  her  aim 
to  produce  something  new  and  different,  an  endless 
variety  of  forms  that  fly,  that  swim,  that  creep,  in 
the  sea,  in  the  air,  on  the  earth,  in  the  fields,  in  the 
woods,  on  the  shore.  How  many  ways  Nature  has  of 
scattering  her  seeds,  how  many  types  of  wings,  of 
hooks,  of  springs !  In  some  she  offers  a  wage  to  bird 
or  quadruped  in  the  shape  of  fruit,  others  she  forci- 
bly attaches  to  the  passer-by.  In  all  times  and 
places  there  is  a  riot  of  invention. 

Ill 

Are  we  not  men  enough  to  face  things  as  they  are? 
Must  we  be  cosseted  a  little?  Can  we  not  be  weaned 
from  the  old  theological  pap?  Can  we  not  rest  con- 
tent in  the  general  beneficence  of  Nature's  Provi- 
11 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

dence?  Must  you  and  I  have  a  special  hold  upon  the 
great  Mother's  apron  strings? 

I  see  the  Nature  Providence  going  its  impartial 
way.  I  see  drought  and  flood,  heat  and  cold,  war 
and  pestilence,  defeat  and  death,  besetting  man  at 
all  times,  in  all  lands.  I  see  hostile  germs  in  the  air 
he  breathes,  in  the  water  he  drinks,  in  the  soil  he 
tills.  I  see  the  elemental  forces  as  indifferent  to- 
ward him  as  toward  ants  and  fleas.  I  see  pain  and 
disease  and  defeat  and  failure  dogging  his  footsteps. 
I  see  the  righteous  defeated  and  the  ungodly  tri- 
umphant—  this  and  much  more  I  see;  and  yet  I 
behold  through  the  immense  biological  vista  be- 
hind us  the  race  of  man  slowly  —  oh,  so  slowly!  — 
emerging  from  its  brute  or  semi-human  ancestry 
into  the  full  estate  of  man,  from  blind  instinct  and 
savage  passion  into  the  light  of  reason  and  moral 
consciousness.  I  behold  the  great  scheme  of  evolu- 
tion unfolding  despite  all  the  delays  and  waste  and 
failures,  and  the  higher  forms  appearing  upon  the 
scene.  I  see  on  an  immense  scale,  and  as  clearly  as  in 
a  demonstration  in  a  laboratory,  that  good  comes 
out  of  evil;  that  the  impartiality  of  the  Nature  Prov- 
idence is  best;  that  we  are  made  strong  by  what  we 
overcome;  that  man  is  man  because  he  is  as  free  to 
do  evil  as  to  do  good;  that  life  is  as  free  to  develop 
hostile  forms  as  to  develop  friendly;  that  power 
waits  upon  him  who  earns  it;  that  disease,  wars. 
the  unloosened,  devastating  elemental  forces,  have 
12 


SHALL  WE  ACCEPT  THE  UNIVERSE? 

each  and  all  played  their  part  in  developing  and 
hardening  man  and  giving  him  the  heroic  fiber.  The 
good  would  have  no  tang,  no  edge,  no  cutting 
quality  without  evil  to  oppose  it.  Life  would  be 
tasteless  or  insipid,  without  pain  and  struggle  and 
disappointment.  Behold  what  the  fiery  furnace 
does  for  the  metals  —  welding  or  blending  or  sep- 
arating or  purifying  them,  and  behold  the  hell  of 
contending  and  destructive  forces  out  of  which  the 
earth  came,  and  again  behold  the  grinding  and 
eroding  forces,  the  storms  and  earthquakes  and 
eruptions  and  disintegrations  that  have  made  it 
the  green  inhabitable  world  that  now  sustains  us! 
No,  the  universal  processes  do  not  need  disinfect- 
ing; the  laws  of  the  winds,  the  rains,  the  sunlight  do 
not  need  rectifying.  "I  do  not  want  the  constella- 
tions any  nearer,"  says  Whitman.  I  do  not  want  the 
natural  Providence  any  more  attentive.  The  celes- 
tial laws  are  here  underfoot  and  our  treading  upon 
them  does  not  obliterate  or  vulgarize  them.  Chemis- 
try is  incorruptible  and  immortal,  it  is  the  hand- 
maid of  God;  the  yeast  works  in  the  elements  of  our 
bread  of  life  while  we  sleep;  the  stars  send  their  in- 
fluences, the  earth  renews  itself,  the  brooding  heaven 
gathers  us  under  its  wings,  and  all  is  well  with  us  if 
we  have  the  heroic  hearts  to  see  it. 

In  the  curve  of  the  moon's  or  of  the  planets' 
disks,  all  broken  or  irregular  lines  of  the  surface  are 
lost  to  the  eye  —  the  wholeness  of  the  sphere  form 
13 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

subordinates  and  obliterates  them  all:  so  all  the 
failures  and  cross-purposes  and  disharmonies  in 
nature  and  life  do  not  suffice  to  break  or  mar  the 
♦vast  general  beneficence;  the  flowing  universal  good 
is  obvious  above  all. 

So  long  as  we  think  of  the  Eternal  in  terms  of  our 
experience  —  of  the  knowledge  of  concrete  things 
and  beings  which  life  discloses  to  us  —  we  are  in- 
volved in  contradictions.  The  ancients  visualized 
their  gods  and  goddesses  —  Jove,  Apollo,  Minerva, 
Juno,  and  all  the  others.  Shall  we  do  this  for  the 
Eternal  and  endow  it  with  personality?  Into  what 
absurdities  this  leads  us!  The  unspeakable,  the  un- 
seeable, the  unthinkable,  the  inscrutable,  and  yet 
the  most  obvious  fact  that  life  yields  to  us !  Nearer 
and  more  vital  than  our  own  bodies,  than  our  own 
parents,  and  yet  eluding  our  grasp;  vehemently 
denied,  passionately  accepted,  scofiFed,  praised, 
feared,  worshiped,  giving  rise  to  deism,  atheism, 
pantheism,  to  idolatry,  to  persecution,  to  martyr- 
dom, the  great  ReaUty  in  which  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being,  and  yet  for  that  very  reason, 
because  it  is  a  part  of  us,  or  rather  we  are  a  part  of 
it,  are  we  unable  to  define  it  or  seize  it  as  a  reality 
apart  from  ourselves.  Our  denial  proves  it;  just  as 
we  use  gravity  to  overcome  gravity,  so  we  use  God 
to  deny  God.  Just  as  pure  light  is  of  no  color,  but 
split  up  makes  all  the  colors  that  we  see,  so  God 
divided  and  reflected  makes  all  the  half-gods  we 
14 


SHALL  WE  ACCEPT  THE  UNIVERSE? 

worship  in  life.  Green  and  blue  and  red  and  orange 
are  not  in  the  objects  that  reflect  them,  but  are  an 
experience  of  the  eye.  We  might  with  our  tongues 
deny  the  air,  but  our  spoken  words  prove  it.  We 
cannot  lift  ourselves  over  the  fence  by  our  own 
waistbands;  no  more  can  we  by  searching  find  God, 
because  He  is  not  an  object  that  has  place  and  form 
and  limitations.  He  is  the  fact  of  the  fact,  the  life 
of  the  life,  the  soul  of  the  soul,  the  incomprehensi- 
ble, the  sum  of  all  contradictions,  the  unit  of  all 
diversity;  he  who  knows  Him,  knows  Him  not;  he 
who  is  without  Him,  is  full  of  Him;  turn  your  back 
upon  Him,  then  turn  your  back  upon  gravity,  upon 
air,  upon  light.  He  cannot  be  seen,  but  by  Him  all 
seeing  comes.  He  cannot  be  heard,  yet  by  Him  all 
hearing  comes.  He  is  not  a  being,  yet  apart  from 
Him  there  is  no  being  —  there  is  no  apart  from 
Him.  We  contradict  ourselves  when  we  deny  Him; 
it  is  ourselves  we  deny,  and  equally  do  we  con- 
tradict ourselves  when  we  accept  Him;  it  is  some- 
thing apart  from  ourselves  which  we  accept. 

When  half-gods  go,  says  Emerson,  the  gods  ar- 
rive. But  half-gods  never  go;  we  can  house  and  en- 
tertain no  other.  What  can  we  do  with  the  Infinite, 
the  Eternal?  We  can  only  deal  with  things  in  time 
and  space  —  things  that  can  be  numbered  and 
measured.  What  can  we  do  with  the  infinitely  little, 
the  infinitely  great?  All  our  gods  are  half -gods  made 
in  our  own  image.  No  surer  does  the  wax  take  the 
15 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

imprint  of  the  seal  than  does  the  Infinite  take  the 
imprint  of  our  finite  minds.  We  create  a  Creator,  we 
rule  a  Ruler,  we  invent  a  heaven  and  hell;  they  are 
laws  of  our  own  being,  seen  externally. 

How,  then,  shall  we  adjust  our  lives  to  the  con- 
ception of  a  universal,  non-human,  non-finite,  al- 
gebraic God?  They  adjust  themselves.  Do  your 
work,  deal  justly,  love  Tightness,  make  the  most  of 
yourself,  cherish  the  good,  the  beautiful,  the  true, 
practice  the  Christian  and  the  heathen  virtues  of 
soberness,  meekness,  reverence,  charity,  unselfish- 
ness, justice,  mercy,  singleness  of  purpose;  obey  the 
commandments,  the  Golden  Rule,  imbue  your 
spirit  with  the  wisdom  of  all  ages,  for  thus  is  the 
moral  order  of  the  world  upheld. 

The  moral  order  and  the  intellectual  order  go 
hand  in  hand.  Upon  one  rests  our  relation  to  our 
fellows,  upon  the  other  rests  our  relation  to  the 
cosmos. 

We  must  know,  and  we  must  love;  we  must  do, 
and  we  must  enjoy;  we  must  warm  judgment  with 
feeling,  and  illume  conscience  with  reason. 

Admit,  if  we  must,  that  we  are  in  the  grip  of  a 
merciless  power,  that  outside  of  our  own  kind  there 
is  nothing  that  shows  us  mercy  or  consideration, 
that  the  Nature  of  which  we  form  a  part  goes  her 
own  way  regardless  of  us;  yet  let  us  keep  in  mind 
that  the  very  fact  that  we  are  here  and  find  life 
good  is  proof  that  the  mercilessness  of  Nature  has 
16 


SHALL  WE  ACCEPT  THE  UNIVERSE? 

not  been  inconsistent  with  our  permanent  well- 
being.  The  fact  that  flowers  bloom  and  fruit  and 
grains  ripen,  that  the  sun  shines,  that  the  rain  falls, 
that  food  nourishes  us,  that  love  warms  us,  that 
evolution  has  brought  us  thus  far  on  our  way,  that 
our  line  of  descent  has  survived  all  the  hazards  of 
the  geologic  ages,  all  point  to  the  fact  that  we  are  on 
the  winning  side,  that  our  well-being  is  secured  in 
the  constitution  of  things.  For  all  the  cataclysms 
and  disruptions,  the  globe  has  ripened  on  the  great 
sidereal  tree,  and  has  become  the  fit  abode  of  its 
myriad  forms  of  life.  Though  we  may  be  run  down 
and  crushed  by  the  great  terrestrial  forces  about  us, 
just  as  we  may  be  run  down  and  crushed  in  the 
street,  yet  these  forces  play  a  part  in  the  activities 
that  sustain  us;  without  them  we  should  not  be 
here  to  suffer  at  their  hands. 

Our  life  depends  from  moment  to  moment  upon 
the  air  we  breathe,  yet  its  winds  and  tempests  may 
destroy  us;  it  depends  from  day  to  day  upon  the 
water  we  drink,  yet  its  floods  may  sweep  us  away. 
We  walk  and  climb  and  work  and  move  mountains 
by  gravity,  and  yet  gravity  may  break  every  bone 
in  our  bodies.  We  spread  our  sails  to  the  winds  and 
they  become  our  faithful  servitors,  yet  the  winds 
may  drive  us  into  the  jaws  of  the  breakers.  How 
are  our  lives  bound  up  and  identified  with  the  mer- 
ciless forces  that  surround  us!  Out  of  the  heart  of 
fate  comes  our  freedom;  out  of  the  reign  of  death 
17 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

comes  our  life;  out  of  the  sea  of  impersonal  energy 
come  our  personalities;  out  of  the  rocks  comes  the 
soil  that  sustains  us;  out  of  the  fiery  nebulae  came 
the  earth  with  its  apple-blossoms  and  its  murmur- 
ing streams;  out  of  the  earth  came  man.  If  the  cos- 
mic forces  were  not  merciless,  if  they  did  not  go 
their  own  way,  if  they  made  exceptions  for  you  and 
me,  if  in  them  there  were  variableness  and  even  a 
shadow  of  turning,  the  vast  inevitable  beneficence 
of  Nature  would  vanish,  and  the  caprice  and  uncer- 
tainty of  man  take  its  place.  If  the  sun  were  to  stand 
still  for  Joshua  to  conquer  his  enemies,  there  would 
be  no  further  need  for  it  to  resume  its  journey. 
What  I  am  trying  to  get  rid  of  is  the  pitying  and 
meddling  Providence  which  our  feeble  faith  and 
half-knowledge  have  enthroned  above  us.  We  need 
stronger  meat  than  the  old  theology  affords  us.  We 
need  to  contemplate  the  ways  of  a  Providence  that 
has  not  been  subsidized;  we  need  encouragement  in 
our  attitude  of  heroic  courage  and  faith  toward  an 
impersonal  universe;  we  need  to  have  our  petty  an- 
thropomorphic views  of  things  shaken  up  and  hung 
out  in  the  wind  to  air.  The  universe  is  not  a  school- 
room on  the  Montessori  lines,  nor  a  benevolent  in- 
stitution run  on  the  most  modern  improved  plan.  It 
is  a  work-a-day  field  where  we  learn  from  hard 
knocks,  and  where  the  harvest,  not  too  sure,  waits 
upon  our  own  right  arm. 


II 

MANIFOLD  NATURE 

FEW  persons,  I  fancy,  ever  spend  much  time  in 
thinking  seriously  of  this  vast,  ever-present 
reality  which  we  call  Nature;  what  our  true  relations 
to  it  are,  what  its  relations  are  to  what  we  call  God, 
or  what  God's  relations  are  to  it;  whether  God  and 
Nature  are  two  or  one  —  God  and  Nature,  or  only 
Nature,  or  only  God. 

When  we  identify  Nature  with  God  we  are  at  once 
in  sore  straits  because  Nature  has  a  terrible  side  to 
her,  but  the  moment  we  separate  God  from  Nature 
we  are  still  more  embarrassed.  We  create  a  hiatus 
which  we  must  find  something  to  fill.  We  must  in- 
vent a  Devil  upon  whom  to  saddle  the  evil  that 
everywhere  dogs  the  footsteps  of  the  good.  So  we 
have  both  a  God  and  a  Devil,  or  two  gods,  on  our 
hands  contending  with  each  other.  Even  our  good 
friends  in  the  churches  talk  glibly  of  the  God  of  Na- 
ture, or  Nature's  God,  little  heeding  the  terrible 
black  depths  that  lie  under  their  words. 

The  Nature  that  the  poets  sing  and  that  nature- 
writers  exploit  is  far  from  being  the  whole  story. 
When  we  think  of  Nature  as  meaning  only  birds 
and  flowers  and  summer  breezes  and  murmuring 
streams,  we  have  only  touched  the  hem  of  her  gar- 
19 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

ment  —  a  garment  that  clothes  the  whole  world 
with  the  terrific  and  the  destructive,  as  well  as  with 
the  beautiful  and  the  beneficent.  Yet  her  fairer 
forms  and  gentler  influences  are  undoubtedly  the 
expression  of  those  forces  and  conditions  that  go 
hand  in  hand  with  the  things  that  make  for  our  de- 
velopment and  well-being. 

Probably  not  till  flowers  bloomed  and  birds  sang 
was  the  earth  ripe  for  man.  Not  till  the  bow  ap- 
peared on  the  retreating  storm-cloud  was  anything 
like  human  life  possible.  Of  savage,  elemental  Na- 
ture, black  in  tempest  and  earthquake,  hideous  in 
war  and  pestilence,  our  poets  and  nature-students 
make  little,  while  devout  souls  seem  to  experience  a 
cosmic  chill  when  they  think  of  these  things. 

The  majority  of  persons,  I  fancy,  when  they  con- 
sider seriously  the  problem,  look  upon  Nature  as 
a  sort  of  connecting  link  between  man  and  some 
higher  power,  neither  wholly  good  nor  wholly  bad; 
divine  in  some  aspects,  diabolical  in  others;  minis- 
tering to  our  bodies,  but  hampering  and  obstructing 
our  souls.  They  see  her  a  goddess  one  hour,  and  a 
fury  the  next;  destroying  life  as  freely  as  she  gives 
it;  arming  one  form  to  devour  another;  crushing  or 
destroying  the  fairest  as  soon  as  the  ugliest;  limited 
in  her  scope  and  powers,  and  not  complete  in  her- 
self, but  demanding  the  existence  of  something 
above  and  beyond  herself. 

Under  the  influence  of  Christianity  man  has 
20 


MANIFOLD  NATURE 

taken  himself  out  of  the  category  of  natural  things, 
both  in  his  origin  and  in  his  destiny.  Such  a  gulf 
separates  him  from  all  other  creatures,  and  his  mas- 
tery over  them  is  so  complete  that  he  looks  upon 
himself  as  exceptional,  and  as  belonging  to  another 
order.  Nature  is  only  his  stepmother,  and  treats 
him  with  the  harshness  and  indifiFerence  that  often 
characterize  that  relation. 

When  Wordsworth  declared  himself  a  worshiper 
of  Nature,  was  he  thinking  of  Nature  as  a  whole,  or 
only  of  an  abridged  and  expurgated  Nature  —  Na- 
ture in  her  milder  and  more  beneficent  aspects?  Was 
it  not  the  Westmoreland  Nature  of  which  he  was 
a  worshiper?  —  a  sweet  rural  Nature,  with  grassy 
fells  and  murmuring  streams  and  bird-haunted  soli- 
tudes? What  would  have  been  his  emotion  in  the 
desert,  in  the  arctic  snows,  or  in  the  pestilential  for- 
ests and  jungles  of  the  tropics?  Very  likely,  just 
what  the  emotion  of  most  of  us  would  be  —  a  feeling 
that  here  are  the  savage  and  forbidding  and  hostile 
aspects  of  Nature  against  which  we  need  to  be  on 
our  guard.  That  creative  eye  and  ear  to  which 
Wordsworth  refers  is  what  mainly  distinguishes  the 
attitude  of  the  modern  poet  toward  Nature  from 
the  ancient.  Sympathy  is  always  creative  — 
"thanks  to  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live." 

The  Wordsworthian  Nature  was  of  the  subjective 
order;  he  found  it  in  his  own  heart,  in  his  dreams  by 
his  own  fireside,  in  moments  of  soul  dilation  on  his 
21 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Westmoreland  hills,  when  the  meanest  flowers  that 
blow  could  bring  to  him  "thoughts  that  do  often  lie 
too  deep  for  tears." 

The  Nature  that  to  Wordsworth  never  betrays 
us,  and  to  Milton  was  "wise  and  frugal,"  is  a  hu- 
manized, man-made  Nature.  The  Nature  we  know 
and  wrest  our  living  from,  and  try  to  drive  sharp 
bargains  with,  is  of  quite  a  different  order.  It  is  no 
more  constant  than  inconstant,  no  more  wise  and 
frugal  than  foolish  and  dissipated;  it  is  not  human 
at  all,  but  unhuman. 

When  we  infuse  into  it  our  own  idealism,  or  re- 
create it  in  our  own  image,  then  we  have  the  Nature 
of  the  poets,  the  Nature  that  consciously  minis- 
ters to  us  and  makes  the  world  beautiful  for  our 
sake. 

When  in  his  first  book,  "Nature,"  Emerson  says 
that  the  aspect  of  Nature  is  devout,  like  the  figure 
of  Jesus  when  he  stands  with  bended  head  and 
hands  folded  upon  the  breast,  we  see  what  a  sub- 
jective and  humanized  Nature,  a  Nature  of  his  own 
creation,  he  is  considering.  His  book  is  not  an  inter- 
pretation of  Nature,  but  an  interpretation  of  his 
own  soul.  It  is  not  Nature  which  stands  in  an  atti- 
tude of  devotion  with  bowed  head,  but  Emerson's 
own  spirit  in  the  presence  of  Nature,  or  of  what  he 
reads  into  Nature.  Yet  the  Emerson  soul  is  a  part  of 
Nature  —  a  peculiar  manifestation  of  its  qualities 
and  possibilities,  developed  through  centuries  of 


MANIFOLD  NATURE 

the  interaction  of  man  upon  man,  through  culture, 
books,  religion,  meditation. 

"  The  ruin  or  the  blank  that  we  see  when  we  look 
at  Nature,"  he  says,  "is  in  our  own  eye."  Is  it  not 
equally  true  that  the  harmony  and  perfection  that 
we  see  are  in  our  own  eye  also?  In  fact,  are  not  all 
the  qualities  and  attributes  which  we  ascribe  to  Na- 
ture equally  the  creation  of  our  own  minds?  The 
beauty,  the  sublimity,  the  power  of  Nature  are  ex- 
periences of  the  beholder.  The  drudge  in  the  fields 
does  not  experience  them,  but  the  poet,  the  thinker, 
the  seer,  does.  Nature  becomes  very  real  to  us  when 
we  come  to  deal  with  her  practically,  when  we  seek 
her  for  specific  ends,  when  we  go  to  her  to  get  our 
living.  But  when  we  go  to  her  in  the  spirit  of  disin- 
terested science,  the  desert,  the  volcano,  the  path 
of  the  cyclone,  are  full  of  the  same  old  meanings, 
the  playground  of  the  same  old  elements  and  forces. 
Nature  is  what  we  make  her.  In  his  Journal  Emer- 
son for  a  moment  sees  Nature  as  she  is:  "Nature  is 
a  swamp,  on  whose  purlieus  we  see  prismatic  dew- 
drops,  but  her  interiors  are  terrific." 

Man  is  the  only  creature  that  turns  upon  Nature 
and  judges  her;  he  turns  upon  his  own  body  and 
mind  and  judges  them;  he  judges  the  work  of  his 
own  hands;  he  is  critical  toward  all  things  that  sur- 
round him;  he  brings  this  faculty  of  judgment  into 
the  world. 

Emerson  refers  to  "the  great  Nature  in  which  we 
23 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

rest  as  the  earth  lies  in  the  soft  arms  of  the  atmos- 
phere." The  earth  lies  in  the  soft  arms  of  the  at- 
mosphere in  the  same  sense  that  it  lies  in  the  soft 
arms  of  its  own  grasses  and  flowers;  the  atmosphere 
is  an  appendage  of  the  earth.  If  the  earth  literally 
lies  in  anything,  it  is  in  the  soft  arms  of  the  all-per- 
vasive ether.  Emerson's  statement  is  the  inevitable 
poetizing  of  Nature  in  which  we  all  indulge.  We 
make  soft  arms  for  our  thoughts  to  lie  in,  and  peace- 
ful paths  for  our  feet  to  walk  in,  whatever  the  literal 
truth  may  be.  This  is  the  way  of  art,  of  poetry,  of 
religion.  The  way  of  science  and  of  practical  life  is  a 
different  way.  The  soft  arms  become  hard  with  pur- 
pose, and  rest  and  contemplation  give  place  to  in- 
tense activity.  I  would  not  have  the  poet  change  his 
way;  Nature  as  reflected  in  his  mind  soothes  and 
charms  us;  it  takes  on  hues  from  that  light  which 
never  was  on  sea  or  land.  But  we  cannot  dispense 
with  the  way  of  science,  which  makes  paths  and 
highways  for  us  through  the  wilderness  of  imper- 
sonal laws  and  forces  that  surge  and  roar  around  us. 
One  gives  us  beauty  and  one  gives  us  power;  one 
brings  a  weapon  to  the  hand,  the  other  brings  solace 
to  the  spirit. 

When  Bryant  identifies  God  with  tempests  and 
thunderbolts,  with  "whirlwinds  that  uproot  the 
woods  and  dro^m  the  villages,"  or  with  the  tidal 
wave  that  overwhelms  the  cities,  "with  the  wrath 
of  the  mad,  unchained  elements"  —  "tremendous 
24 


MANIFOLD  NATURE 

tokens  of  thy  power"  —  does  he  make  God  more 
lovable  or  desirable?  Well  may  he  say,  "From  these 
sterner  aspects  of  thy  face,  spare  me  and  mine." 
By  way  of  contrast  let  me  recall  that  when  an  earth- 
quake shook  California,  John  Muir  cheered  himself 
and  friends  by  saying  it  was  only  Mother  Earth 
trotting  her  children  fondly  upon  her  knee!  If  we 
identify  God  with  all  of  Nature,  this  wrathful  He- 
brew Jehovah  of  Bryant  is  a  legitimate  conception. 
There  are  times  when  the  aerial  forces  behave  like 
a  raving  maniac  bent  upon  the  destruction  of  the 
world  —  the  insensate  powers  run  amuck  upon  all 
living  things.  This  is  not  the  God  we  habitually  love 
and  worship,  but  it  is  a  God  from  whom  there  is  no 
escape.  As  the  result  of  the  inevitable  action  of  the 
natural  irrational  or  unrational  forces,  tempests  and 
earthquakes  and  tidal  waves  do  not  disturb  us;  but 
as  the  will  and  purpose  of  an  Almighty  Being,  Crea- 
tor of  heaven  and  earth,  they  give  all  pious  souls  a 
fearful  shake-up.  We  take  refuge  in  such  phrases  as 
"the  inscrutable  ways  of  God,"  or  "the  mysteries 
of  Providence,"  a  Providence  whose  ways  are  as- 
suredly "past  finding  out." 

Our  State  Commissioner  of  Education,  Dr.  Fin- 
ley,  in  an  agricultural  address  on  "Potatoes  and 
Boys,"  showed  God  cooperating  with  the  farmer  in 
a  way  that  amused  me.  "The  Almighty,"  the  Com- 
missioner said,  "can  make,  unaided  of  man,  pota- 
toes, but  only  small  potatoes,  and  of  acrid  taste.  He 
25 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

had  to  make  a  primitive  man  and  even  teach  him  to 
use  a  hoe,  before  He,  the  Omnipotent  One,  could 
grow  a  patch  of  potatoes."  The  wild  potato,  he  im- 
plied, like  the  wild  grape,  the  wUd  apple,  the  wild 
melon,  was  the  work  of  God  before  he  had  man  to 
help  him;  now,  with  man's  help,  we  have  all  the  im- 
proved varieties  of  potatoes  and  fruits.  We  have 
heard  a  good  deal  about  the  cooperation  of  man 
with  God,  and  as  a  concrete  example  this  potato- 
growing  partnership  is  very  interesting.  How  far 
from  our  habitual  attitude  of  mind  is  the  thought 
that  the  Higher  Powers  concern  themselves  about 
our  potatoes  or  our  turnips  or  our  pumpkin  crop,  or 
have  any  part  or  lot  in  it!  Emerson  in  his  Journal 
expresses  another  view: "  One  would  think  that  God 
made  fig-trees  and  dates,  grapes  and  olives,  but  the 
Devil  made  Baldwin  apples  and  pound  pears,  cher- 
ries and  whortle  berries,  Indian  com  and  Irish  pota- 
toes." 

Sir  Thomas  Browne  called  Nature  the  art  of  God. 
Viewed  in  this  light  we  get  a  new  conception  of  Na- 
ture, the  artistic  conception.  We  do  not  ask:  Is  it 
good  or  bad,  for  us  or  against  us?  we  are  intent  on 
its  symbolical  or  ideal  character.  Through  it  God 
expresses  himself  as  the  artist  does,  be  he  painter, 
poet,  or  musician,  through  his  work,  blending  the 
various  elements  —  the  light  and  shade,  the  good 
and  the  bad,  the  positive  and  the  negative  —  into  a 
vital,  harmonious  whole.  Creation  becomes  a  pic- 
26 


MANIFOLD  NATURE 

ture,  or  a  drama,  or  a  symphony,  in  which  all  life 
plays  its  part,  in  which  all  scenes  and  conditions, 
all  elemental  processes  and  displays,  play  their  part 
and  unite  to  make  a  vast  artistic  whole.  The  con- 
tradictions in  life,  the  high  lights,  the  deep  shadows, 
the  imperfections,  the  neutral  spaces,  are  but  the 
devices  of  the  artist  to  enhance  the  total  effect  of 
his  work.  In  ethics  and  religion  we  ask  of  a  thing: 
"Is  it  good?"  In  philosophy:  "Is  it  true?"  In  sci- 
ence: "Is  it  a  fact,  and  verifiable?"  But  in  art  we 
ask:  "Is  it  beautiful?"  or  "Is  it  a  real  creation?" 
"  Is  it  one  with  the  vital  and  flowing  currents  of  the 
world?" 

The  artist  alone  is  the  creator  among  men;  he  is 
disinterested;  he  has  no  purpose  but  to  rival  Na- 
ture; he  subordinates  the  parts  to  the  whole;  he  il- 
lustrates the  divine  law  of  indirections.  The  bald, 
literal  truth  is  not  for  him,  but  the  illusive,  the  sug- 
gestive, the  ideal  truth.  He  does  not  ask  what  life  or 
Nature  are  for,  or  are  they  good  or  bad,  but  he  in- 
terprets them  in  terms  of  the  relation  of  their  parts, 
he  reads  them  in  the  light  of  his  own  soul.  He  knows 
there  is  no  picture  without  shadows,  no  music  with- 
out discords,  no  growth  without  decay.  The  artist 
has  "no  axe  to  grind";  to  him  all  is  right  with  the 
world,  however  out  of  joint  it  may  be  in  our  self- 
seeking  lives.  Art  is  synthetic,  and  puts  a  soul  under 
the  ribs  of  Death.  Science  is  a  straight  line,  but  Art 
is  symbolized  by  the  curve. 
27 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

To  regard  Nature,  therefore,  as  the  art  of  God, 
is  to  see  it  complete  in  itself;  all  the  disharmonies 
vanish,  all  our  perplexing  problems  are  solved. 
The  earth  and  the  heavens  are  not  for  our  private 
good  alone,  but  for  all  other  things.  Opposites  are 
blended.  Good  and  bad  are  relative;  heaven  and 
hell  are  light  and  shade  in  the  same  picture.  Our 
happiness  or  our  misery  are  secondary;  they  are  the 
pigments  on  the  painter's  palette.  The  beauty  of 
Nature  is  its  harmony  with  our  constitution;  its 
terror  emphasizes  our  weakness. 

Where  does  the  great  artist  get  his  laws  of  art  but 
from  his  insight  into  the  spirit  and  method  of  Na- 
ture? They  are  reflected  in  his  own  heart;  the  act  of 
creation  repeats  itself  in  his  own  handiwork.  The 
true  artist  has  no  secondary  aims  —  not  to  teach  or 
to  preach,  nor  to  praise  nor  condemn;  but  to  por- 
tray, and  to  show  us,  through  the  particular,  the 
road  to  the  universal. 

Eckermann  reports  Goethe  as  saying  to  him  that 
"Nature's  intentions  are  always  good";  but  if 
questioned,  Goethe  would  hardly  have  maintained 
that  the  clouds,  the  winds,  the  streams,  the  tides, 
gravity,  cohesion,  and  so  on,  have  intentions  of  any 
sort,  much  less  intentions  directed  to  us  or  away 
from  us.  Even  the  wisest  among  us  thus  make  man 
the  aim  and  object  of  Nature.  We  impose  our  own 
psychology  upon  the  very  rock  and  trees. 

Goethe  always  read  into  Nature  his  own  human 
28 


MANIFOLD  NATURE 

traits;  always  when  he  speaks  of  her  he  speaks  as  an 
artist  and  poet.  He  says  to  Eckermann  that  Nature 
"is  always  true,  always  serious,  always  severe;  she 
is  always  right,  and  the  errors  and  faults  are  always 
those  of  man.  The  man  who  is  incapable  of  appre- 
ciating her,  she  despises;  and  only  to  the  apt,  the 
pure,  the  true,  does  she  resign  herself  and  reveal  her 
secrets.  The  understanding  will  not  reach  her;  man 
must  be  capable  of  elevating  himself  to  the  highest 
Reason  to  come  into  that  contact  with  the  Divinity 
which  manifests  in  the  primitive  phenomena  which 
dwell  behind  them  and  from  which  they  proceed. 
The  divinity  works  in  the  living,  not  in  the  dead;  in 
the  becoming  and  changing,  not  in  the  become  and 
the  fixed.  Therefore,  reason,  with  its  tendency  to- 
ward the  divine,  has  only  to  do  with  the  becoming, 
the  living;  but  understanding  has  to  do  with  the  be- 
come, the  already  fixed,  that  it  may  make  use  of 
it."  In  this  last  we  see  the  germ  of  Bergson's  philoso- 
phy. The  divinity  that  dwells  behind  phenomena, 
and  from  which  they  proceed,  is  the  attempt  of  the 
human  mind  to  find  the  end  of  that  which  has  no 
end,  the  law  of  causation. 


Ill 

EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

"Proud  man  exclaims,  'See  all  things  for  my  use!' 
*See  all  for  mine,*  replies  the  pampered  goose." 

AND  the  pampered  goose  was  right:  all  things 
are  just  as  much  for  her  use  as  for  man's, 
while  there  are  reasonable  doubts  whether  things 
were  created  for  the  especial  use  of  either. 

Man,  like  the  goose,  appropriates  what  suits  him, 
but  is  slow  to  realize  the  fact  that  what  suits  him,  or 
is  fitted  to  his  use,  depends  upon  his  own  powers  of 
adaptation.  We  can  say  that  he  suits  it,  rather  than 
that  it  suits  him.  He  has  lungs  because  there  is  air, 
and  eyes  because  there  are  certain  vibrations  in  the 
ether.  In  short,  nature  is  the  primary  fact,  and  the 
forms  and  organs  of  life  the  secondary  fact. 

Goethe  said  to  Eckermann  that  he  followed  Kant 
in  looking  upon  each  creature  as  existing  for  its  own 
sake.  He  could  not  believe,  he  said,  that  the  cork- 
trees grow  merely  that  we  might  stop  our  bottles, 
and,  he  might  have  added,  that  rubber-trees  grow 
that  we  might  have  rubber  overshoes.  The  lady  in  a 
public  audience  who  once  asked  me  what  flies  are 
for,  evidently  thought  that  God  had  made  a  mistake 
in  creating  that  which  annoyed  her.  I  was  pleased 
with  a  remark  of  John  Muir's  in  his  Sierra  book 
30 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

about  the  poison  ivy:  "Like  most  other  things  not 
apparently  useful  to  man,"  he  says,  "it  has  few 
friends,  and  the  blind  question,  'Why  was  it  made?' 
goes  on  and  on  with  never  a  guess  that  first  of  all  it 
might  have  been  made  for  itself."  Coming  from  the 
mouth  of  a  Scotch  Presbyterian,  this  is  heretical 
doctrine.  Muir  had  evidently  forgotten  his  early 
training. 

It  is  possible  for  man  to  make  use  of  poison  ivy; 
in  fact  it  is  used  in  medicine;  but  who  shall  dare  to 
say  that  it  was  made  for  that?  Flies  and  poison  ivy 
and  all  other  noxious  and  harmful  things  are  each 
and  all  for  their  own  sakes.  They  were  not  made  in 
the  sense  that  we  make  things.  They  have  come  to 
be  what  we  now  find  them  through  the  action  and 
interaction  of  a  thousand  complex  influences.  Each 
has  found  its  place  in  the  scheme  of  living  things, 
and  each  acts  directly  or  indirectly  upon  other 
forms  —  is  of  use  to  them,  or  the  reverse.  Ten  thou- 
sand things  are  of  use  to  man,  and  as  many  more  of 
no  use  to  him,  but  to  measure  all  things  by  his 
standard  of  utility  is  childish,  or  to  ask  what  mos- 
quitoes and  rattlesnakes  are  for,  with  an  implied 
impeachment  of  Nature  if  they  are  not  of  service  to 
man,  is  an  idle  question.  The  water  and  the  air  are 
indispensable  to  life,  but  these  things  are  older  than 
life.  Life  is  adapted  to  them,  and  not  they  to  it. 

The  body  is  full  of  fluids  because  earth  and  air  are 
full  of  water.  From  our  standpoint  man  is  at  the 
31 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

head  of  animate  nature,  but  the  rest  of  creation  is 
no  more  exclusively  for  him  than  for  the  least  of 
living  things.  The  good  of  the  world  is  for  whatever 
or  whoever  can  use  it.  Houseflies  are  undoubtedly 
the  enemy  of  the  human  race;  so  are  mosquitoes,  so 
are  venomous  snakes,  so  are  many  forms  of  bacteria, 
and  a  thousand  other  things.  Our  egotism  prompts 
us  to  ask,  "Why  is  evil  in  the  world,  anyhow?"  But 
our  evil  may  be  the  good  of  some  other  creature. 
Our  defeat  means  the  triumph  of  our  enemy.  It  is 
through  this  conflict  of  good  and  evil,  or  of  things 
that  are  for  us  with  things  that  are  against  us,  that 
species  are  developed  and  perpetuated. 

What  kind  of  a  world  would  it  be  without  what 
we  call  evil,  without  hindrances?  To  the  farmer 
drought,  flood,  tornadoes,  untimely  frosts  are  evils 
which  he  thinks  he  could  well  dispense  with,  but 
so  far  as  they  make  a  greater  struggle  necessary,  so 
far  as  they  lead  to  more  self-denial,  greater  fore- 
thought, and  so  on,  they  are  good  in  disguise. 
Hardy,  virile  characters,  like  tough  timber,  in  oaks, 
are  developed  by  unfriendly  and  opposing  forces. 
Intemperance,  greed,  cheating,  lying,  war,  are  evils 
in  the  social  and  business  world;  but  they  teach  us 
the  value  of  their  opposites.  We  react  from  them.  It 
is  a  child's  question  to  ask,  for  example,  "Would 
the  world  not  have  been  better  had  there  never  been 
any  war?"  because,  since  mankind  is  what  it  is, 
wars  are  inevitable.  The  absence  of  wars,  as  of  in- 
32 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

temperance,  greed,  cheating,  implies  a  different 
mankind,  and  a  different  mankind  implies  a  differ- 
ent system  of  things. 

The  problem  of  evil  is  the  problem  of  life;  no  evil, 
no  life.  The  world  is  thus  made.  Nature  is  not  half 
good  and  half  bad;  she  is  wholly  good,  or  wholly 
bad,  according  to  our  relation  to  her.  Fire  and  flood 
are  bad  when  they  master  us,  and  good  when  we 
master  and  control  them.  Great  good  has  come  out 
of  war,  and  great  evil.  The  evil  always  tends  to  drop 
out  or  be  obliterated,  as  the  path  of  cyclones  and 
earthquakes  tend  to  be  overgrown  and  forgotten. 
Burned  cities  often  rise  from  their  ashes  to  new  life. 
The  effects  of  evil  are  finally  obliterated;  malignant 
forces  have  their  day,  benignant  forces  go  on  for- 
ever. The  world  of  life,  let  me  repeat,  would  not  be 
here  were  not  the  balance  of  the  account  of  good 
and  evil  on  the  side  of  the  good,  or  if  good  did  not 
come  out  of  evil. 

Life  is  recuperative;  if  it  falls  down,  it  picks  itself 
up  again.  If  a  state  is  devastated  by  war,  in  time  the 
cities  and  towns  are  rebuilt,  and  the  ranks  of  peace 
and  industry  refilled,  though  the  growth  and  civili- 
zation of  that  country  may  have  had  a  terrible  set- 
back, and  the  whole  progress  of  the  race  be  re- 
tarded. Evil  perishes.  The  terrible  World  War,  set 
going  by  Germany,  has  depleted  the  wealth,  the 
life,  the  well-being  of  the  whole  European  world, 
but  as  the  scars  it  made  upon  the  landscape  will  in 
33 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

time  be  effaced,  so  its  effect  upon  the  life  of  the 
states  and  communities  will  fade  and  be  a  memory 
only.  Still  the  evils  it  entailed  are  none  the  less  de- 
plorable. Its  heritage  of  hate,  of  devastated  homes, 
of  depleted  treasures,  will  long  continue. 

Life,  then,  in  all  its  forms  is  for  its  own  sake.  It  is 
an  end  in  itself.  Many  things  are  inimical  to  us,  and 
we  are  equally  inimical  to  many  things.  We  lay  the 
whole  of  Nature  under  contribution  so  far  as  we  can, 
and  we  curb  and  defeat  her  hostile  forces  so  far  as 
we  can,  but  the  world  was  no  more  made  for  man 
than  it  was  made  for  mice  and  midges.  When  we  see 
how  irrespective  of  us  the  natural  forces  go  their 
way,  that  we  can  ride  them  and  guide  them  only  as 
we  do  wild  horses  —  by  being  quicker  and  more 
masterful  than  they  are  —  when  we  know  that  they 
will  tread  us  down  with  the  same  indifference  that 
we  tread  down  the  grass  and  the  weeds,  the  facts 
should  temper  and  modify  our  egotism.  When  we 
look  into  the  depths  of  merely  our  own  solar  system, 
and  see  vast  globes  like  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  so 
much  older  and  greater  than  our  little  earth,  and 
not  yet  the  abode  of  any  form  of  life,  and  probably 
not  within  millions  of  years  of  such  a  state,  how 
casual  and  insignificant  man  seems !  How  far  from 
being  the  end  and  object  of  creation ! 

Doubtless  there  are  numberless  worlds  and  whole 
systems  of  worlds  in  the  depths  of  sidereal  space 
upon  which  life  has  never  appeared,  and  number- 
34 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

less  other  worlds  and  systems  upon  which  it  has  had 
its  day  and  gone  out  forever.  Life  is  but  an  incident 
in  the  total  scheme  of  things. 

To  ask  what  this  or  that  is  for,  with  reference  to 
ourselves,  and  to  conclude  that  some  one  or  some- 
thing has  blundered  if  it  is  not  of  positive  use  to  us, 
is,  let  me  repeat,  to  see  and  to  think  as  a  child.  We 
know  what  the  hooks  on  the  burdock  and  the  stick- 
seed  are  for,  and  what  the  wings  on  the  maple  and 
the  ash-seed  are  for,  but  do  we  know  what  the  stings 
on  the  nettle,  or  the  spines  on  the  blackberry  or  on 
the  thorn-apple  tree  are  for?  The  cattle  eat  the 
nettle,  the  birds  eat  the  berries,  and  the  wild  crea- 
tures eat  the  thorn-apple.  How  could  their  seeds 
get  sown  if  the  prickles  and  thorns  defended  them 
against  wild  life?  Spines  and  thorns  seem  expressive 
of  moods  or  conditions  in  Nature,  and  to  be  quite 
independent  of  use,  as  we  understand  the  term. 

Nature's  ways  are  so  unlike  our  ways!  Her  sys- 
tem of  economics  would  soon  bring  us  to  bank- 
ruptcy. She  has  no  rival,  no  competitor,  no  single 
end  in  view,  no  more  need  to  store  up  wealth  than 
to  scatter  it.  One  form  gains  what  another  form 
loses.  Humanly  speaking,  she  is  always  trying  to  de- 
feat herself.  The  potato-bug,  if  left  alone,  would  ex- 
terminate the  potato  and  so  exterminate  itself;  the 
currant-worm  would  exterminate  the  currant;  the 
forest  worms  would  exterminate  the  forests,  did  not 
parasites  appear  and  check  these  ravages.  Nature 
35 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

trumps  her  own  trick;  she  scuttles  her  own  ship;  she 
mines  her  own  defenses;  she  poisons  her  own  foun- 
tains; she  sows  tares  in  her  own  wheat;  and  yet  she 
wins,  because  she  is  the  All.  The  tares  are  hers,  the 
parasites  are  hers,  the  devastating  storms  and 
floods  are  hers,  the  earthquakes  and  volcanoes  are 
hers,  disease  and  death  are  hers,  as  well  as  youth 
and  health.  The  cancer  that  eats  into  a  man's  vitals 
—  what  keeps  it  going  but  Nature's  forces  and 
fluids?  The  bacteria  that  flourish  in  our  bodies  and 
bring  the  scourges  of  typhoid  fever,  diphtheria, 
tuberculosis,  are  all  hers,  and  a  part  of  her  system 
of  things.  A  malignant  tumor  is  as  much  an  expres- 
sion of  Providence  as  is  a  baby  or  a  flower.  Nature 
cuts  the  ground  from  under  her  own  feet;  she  saws 
off  the  limb  upon  which  she  is  perched,  but  if  she 
falls,  she  alights  in  her  own  lap. 

In  walking  through  a  blighted  potato-field  this 
morning,  I  said,  "Here  is  one  form  of  vegetable  life 
destroying  another  form  and  bringing  loss  and  dis- 
content to  the  farmer's  heart."  What  purpose  in  the 
economy  of  Nature  is  served  by  this  blight?  Who  or 
what  is  the  gainer?  After  the  minute  organisms  that 
prey  upon  the  potato-vines  have  done  their  work, 
they  too  perish,  so  that  two  forms  of  life  are  blotted 
out.  What  was  it  all  for?  Why  is  this  tragedy  of  one 
form  of  life  bringing  to  naught  other  forms,  which 
we  witness  on  every  hand,  in  vegetable  and  animal 
life,  and  in  human  history,  being  constantly  en- 
36 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

acted?  The  question,  put  in  this  way,  is  a  purely 
human  one;  it  is  applying  to  the  vast  scheme  of 
creation  purely  human  standards.  We  instinctively 
ask  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  things,  and  in  our 
practical  lives  try  to  avoid  letting  one  hand  defeat 
the  other  as  Nature  does  in  the  above  incident.  We 
guard  one  form  of  life  against  another  hostile  form. 
Our  aim  is  to  make  things  pull  together  for  our  own 
advantage.  We  seek  to  check  the  ravages  of  the  tent 
caterpillar,  the  forest  worms,  the  gypsy  moth,  the 
potato-beetle,  and  the  invisible  enemies  that  rot  our 
grapes  and  mar  our  apples,  as  well  as  the  germs  that 
sow  fatal  diseases  in  our  midst.  But  not  so  Nature. 
She  does  not  take  sides.  As  I  have  said,  she  has 
no  special  and  limited  aims.  The  stakes  are  herg, 
whoever  wins.  One  condition  of  the  season  favors 
the  growth  of  the  potato- vines;  another  condition 
favors  the  development  of  the  fungus  that  destroys 
them.  Nature  is  just  as  much  on  the  side  of  the  rat 
as  on  the  side  of  the  cat;  she  arms  each  to  defeat  the 
other,  and  the  fittest  survives.  She  has  not  given 
the  rabbit  strength  or  ferocity,  but  she  has  given 
her  speed  and  a  sleepless  eye  and  great  fecundity, 
and  her  enemies  do  not  cut  her  off. 

The  struggle  and  competition  of  hfe  go  on  every- 
where. But  life  is  not  all  a  struggle;  it  is  unity  and 
cooperation  as  well.  The  trees  of  the  forest  protect 
one  another;  one  form  of  life  profits  by  another 
form. 

37 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

In  the  whole  drama  of  organic  nature  we  find 
waste  and  prodigality.  Our  economics  are  set  at 
naught  by  the  power  that  works  to  no  special  ends, 
but  to  all  ends,  and  finds  its  account  in  the  tumor 
that  eats  up  the  man,  as  much  as  in  the  man  him- 
self, in  the  fungi  that  destroy  the  potato  crop,  or  the 
chestnut-trees,  as  truly  as  in  these  things  them- 
selves. Yet  behold  what  specialization  and  what 
development  has  taken  place  in  spite  of  these  cross- 
purposes,  this  chaos  of  conflicting  interests !  Out  of 
discord  has  come  harmony;  out  of  conflict  has  come 
peace;  out  of  death  has  come  life;  out  of  the  reptile 
has  come  the  bird;  out  of  the  beast  has  come  man; 
out  of  the  savage  has  come  the  moral  conscience; 
out  of  the  tribe  has  come  the  nation;  out  of  tyranny 
has  come  democracy.  It  is  the  waste,  the  delays,  the 
pain,  the  price  to  be  paid,  that  appall  us. 

We  must  regard  creation  as  a  whole,  as  the  evo- 
lution of  worlds  and  systems,  and  not  concentrate 
our  attention  upon  man  and  his  ways,  or  upon  the 
earth  —  so  small  a  part  of  our  solar  system. 

Our  benevolent  institutions  are  not  types  of  the 
universe;  our  idea  of  fatherhood  does  not  fit  the 
Eternal. 

Our  fathers  had  a  complete  and  consistent  ex- 
planation of  the  problem  of  evil  that  so  perplexes  us. 
They  invented  or  postulated  two  opposing  and  con- 
tending principles  in  the  world  —  one  divine,  the 
other  diabolical.  One  they  named  God,  the  other, 
38 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

Satan.  Their  conception  of  God  would  not  allow 
them  to  saddle  all  the  evil  and  misery  of  the  world 
upon  him;  they  had  to  look  for  a  scapegoat,  and 
they  found  him  in  the  Devil.  One  is  just  as  necessary 
to  a  consistent  cosmogony  as  the  other.  If  we  must 
have  an  all-wise,  all-merciful,  all-powerful,  all-loving 
God  —  the  author  of  all  good  and  the  contemner 
of  all  evil  —  we  must  also  have  a  god  of  the  oppo- 
site type,  the  great  mischief-maker  and  enemy  of 
human  happiness  —  the  author  of  war,  pestilence, 
famine,  disease,  and  of  all  that  hinders  and  defeats 
the  reign  of  the  perfect  good.  Without  the  concep- 
tion of  the  Devil,  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion, 
either  that  God  is  not  omnipotent,  or  that  he  is  re- 
sponsible for  all  the  sin  and  suffering  in  the  world. 
If  you  make  man  this  Devil,  then  who  made 
man? 

Wrestle  with  the  problem  as  we  may,  we  are  im- 
paled on  one  or  the  other  horn  of  the  dilemma. 
Our  traditional  God  is  more  cruel  and  more  indiffer- 
ent to  human  suffering  than  any  tyrant  that  ever 
gloated  over  human  blood  and  agony,  or  else  he  is 
fearfully  limited  in  his  power  for  good. 

With  a  Devil  at  our  disposal  to  whom  we  can  im- 
pute the  evils  of  life,  the  situation  clears  up,  and 
God  emerges,  shorn  of  his  omnipotence,  it  is  true, 
but  still  the  symbol  of  goodness  and  love. 

In  our  day  the  Devil  has  lost  his  prestige  and  is 
much  discredited.  As  a  power  in  men's  minds  his 
39 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

reign  is  over,  and  hell,  his  headquarters,  no  longer 
casts  its  lurid  light  upon  human  life. 

In  an  equal  measure  the  old  Hebraic  conception 
of  God  as  a  much-magnified  man,  the  king  anc 
ruler  of  heaven  and  earth,  with  heaven  as  his  throne 
has  gone  out.  God  is  now  little  more  than  a  name 
for  that  tendency  or  power  in  the  universe  which 
makes  for  righteousness,  and  which  has  brought 
evolution  thus  far  on  its  course. 

To  account  for  the  world  as  we  find  it,  we  are 
compelled  to  look  upon  it  as  the  inevitable  result 
of  the  clashing  and  interaction  of  purely  natural 
forces  resulting  in  both  so-called  good  and  evil;  that 
is,  in  what  is  favorable  to  life,  and  in  what  is  against 
life.  But  as  life  is  adaptive  and  assimilative,  it  slowly 
turns  the  evil  into  good,  of  course  at  the  expense  of 
delays  and  waste  and  suffering,  and  thus  develop- 
ment becomes  possible,  and  man,  after  untold  mil- 
lions of  years,  appears. 

When  we  look  forth  upon  the  universe,  what  do 
we  see?  When  we  look  upon  the  non-Uving  world, 
we  see  a  mere  welter  and  chaos  of  material  forces  — ■ 
a  conflict  of  chemical  and  physical  principles  seek- 
ing a  stable  equilibrium  —  water  running,  winds 
blowing,  mountains  decaying,  stars  and  systems 
whirling,  suns  waning  or  waxing,  nebulae  condens- 
ing, vast  orbs  colliding,  and  all  issuing  in  a  certain 
order  and  system  under  the  rule  of  purely  mechani- 
cal and  mathematical  laws.  The  stellar  universe  is  a 
40 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

vast  machine,  amenable  to  the  measurements  and 
calculations  of  the  astronomers.  The  eclipses  all 
occur  exactly  on  time,  and  the  planets  revolve  in 
their  orbits  without  the  untruth,  as  Whitman  says, 
of  a  single  second.  The  disorder  and  disruptions 
which  occur  are  inside  of  vast  fundamental  laws. 
Our  mountains  and  seas  are  shaken  by  earthquakes, 
and  the  earth's  surface  is  swept  by  cyclones  and  the 
seashores  are  devastated  by  tidal  waves,  yet  these 
things  are  only  phases  of  the  effort  toward  a  fixed 
equilibrium.  The  earth's  surface  as  we  now  behold 
it,  the  distribution  of  land  and  water,  of  mountain 
and  plain,  the  procession  of  the  seasons,  our  whole 
weather  system,  the  friendly  and  the  unfriendly 
forces,  are  all  the  outcome  of  this  clash  and  stress 
of  the  physical  forces,  which  make  a  paradise  of 
some  places  and  the  opposite  of  others. 

When  we  look  upon  the  living  world  as  revealed 
in  the  geologic  record,  we  still  see  a  kind  of  welter 
and  chaos,  but  we  also  see  the  advent  of  new  prin- 
ciples not  entirely  subject  to  mechanical  and  mathe- 
matical laws.  Life  goes  its  way  and  takes  liberties 
with  its  physical  environment.  Living  bodies  change 
and  develop  as  the  non-living  do  not.  The  various 
organic  forms  "rise  on  stepping-stones  of  their  dead 
selves,"  and  incalculably  slow  transformations  of 
lower  forms  into  higher  take  place,  but  not  without 
appalling  delays  and  waste  and  suffering.  Chemical 
and  mechanical  laws  are  still  in  full  force,  but  they 
41 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

appear  to  be  in  the  service  of  a  new  principle;  an 
organizing  tendency  of  a  new  kind  is  at  work  in  the 
world;  chance  and  necessity  seem  to  play  a  less  con- 
spicuous part.  Yet  there  is  nothing  that  meets  our 
idea  of  justice,  or  mercy,  or  economy  of  effort. 

For  millions  upon  millions  of  years  the  earth 
swarmed  with  low,  all  but  brainless  creatures.  The 
monsters  of  sea  and  land  that  appeared  in  the  mid- 
dle period  were  huge  and  terrible  in  body  and  limb, 
but  very  small  in  capacity  of  brain.  Huge  ganglions, 
or  knots  of  nervous  tissue,  in  different  parts  of  their 
bodies  seem  to  have  served  as  a  substitute  for  a  cen- 
tralized brain  and  a  complex  nervous  system.  The 
brontosaurus,  seventy  feet  long,  with  a  body  weigh- 
ing many  tons,  had  a  brain  not  much  larger  than  a 
man's  double  fists.  Brains  as  yet  played  a  very  sub- 
ordinate part  in  the  world.  Reptiles  and  half -reptiles 
possessed  the  earth.  The  age  of  mammals  was  as  yet 
only  hinted  at.  But  after  long  geologic  ages,  mam- 
mals came  to  the  front,  holding  the  precious  possi- 
bility of  man,  and  reptiles  were  relegated  to  the  rear. 
The  animal  brain  increased,  wit  began  to  get  the 
better  of  brute  force,  and  the  small  and  feeble  ances- 
tors of  man  appeared  in  the  biological  drama.  They 
were  like  small  and  timid  supernumeraries  skulk- 
ing or  hiding  on  the  wings  of  the  stage.  Lemurs  and 
monkeys  appeared  long  before  there  were  any  signs 
of  the  anthropoid  apes,  and  the  anthropoid  apes  were 
in  evidence  long  before  the  first  rude  man  appeared. 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

In  all  the  vast  stretch  of  geologic  and  biologic 
time,  do  we  see  any  evidence  of  the  active  existence 
of  the  God  and  the  Devil  of  our  fathers?  Not  unless 
we  identify  them  with  the  material  forces  that  then 
ruled  and  shaped  the  world,  and  these  forces,  by  any 
other  name,  are  of  the  same  impersonal,  impartial, 
unforgiving  character  as  is  disclosed  in  our  dealings 
with  them  to-day. 

When  we  turn  to  the  higher  forms  of  organic  life, 
especially  to  man  and  his  history,  what  do  we  see? 
We  still  behold  the  same  trial-and-error  method, 
the  same  cruelty,  waste,  delays,  and  suffering  that 
we  behold  in  the  lower  forms.  We  see  progress,  we 
see  the  growth  of  ethical  principles,  we  see  man's 
increasing  mastery  over  the  forces  of  nature  and 
over  himself,  but  in  the  competition  of  races  and  na- 
tions, the  race  is  still  to  the  swift  and  the  battle  to 
the  strong.  We  see  a  high  standard  of  individual 
morality  contending  with  a  low  standard  of  interna- 
tional morality.  We  still  see  civilized  nations  look- 
ing upon  treaties  as  "scraps  of  paper";  we  see  them 
regarding  their  neighbors  as  rivals  and  enemies;  we 
see  millions  of  men  that  have  not  the  shadow  of 
a  grievance  against  one  another,  fiercely  trying  to 
slay  one  another,  and  praying  to  the  same  God  for 
victory.  We  see  the  nefarious  doctrine  that  physical 
might  makes  moral  right  written  in  lines  of  blood 
and  fire  across  the  face  of  whole  kingdoms;  we  see 
the  legitimate  competitions  of  peace  and  industry 
43 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

turned  into  the  strife  of  armed  conquest;  we  see  a 
small  and  peaceful  nation  trampled  underfoot  by  a 
big  nation  bent  upon  plunder  and  conquest;  we  see 
hatred  toward  a  kindred  nation  glorified,  and  the 
murder  of  innocent  women  and  children  and  other 
non-combatants  adopted  as  a  fixed  policy;  in  fact, 
we  see  all  the  vast  resources  of  science  and  of  mod- 
em civilization  wedded  to  the  spirit  of  the  Hun,  and 
turned  loose  in  a  war  for  world-dominion.  The  re- 
sults of  eighteen  centuries  of  Christian  culture  come 
off  the  German  nation  like  a  whitewash  in  this  craze 
and  fury  of  the  military  spirit;  the  German  people 
stand  revealed  as  at  heart  unmitigated  barbarians, 
wonderfully  efficient,  but  wonderfully  inhuman.  If 
we  appeal  to  the  supernatural  to  account  for  things, 
we  certainly  need  a  Devil,  if  not  several  of  them,  to 
account  for  the  temper  of  the  German  mind  during 
the  late  war.  No  wonder  the  good  people  are  losing 
faith,  and  are  shocked  and  dismayed  at  the  thought 
that  their  all-loving,  omnipotent  God  permits  these 
things. 

Down  the  whole  course  of  history  we  see  no  other 
powers  at  work  than  those  that  are  about  us.  Good 
is  in  the  ascendancy  everywhere,  or  soon  will  be; 
evil  dies  out;  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling;  the 
amelioration  of  mankind  goes  on;  and  no  God  or 
Devil  hinders  or  favors. 

Nature  is  both  God  and  Devil,  and  natural  law  is 
supreme  in  the  world.  The  moral  consciousness  of 
44 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

man,  —  all  our  dreams  of  perfection,  of  immortality, 
of  the  good,  the  beautiful,  the  true,  all  our  venera- 
tion and  our  religious  aspirations, — this  is  Nature, 
too. 

Man  is  a  part  of  the  universe;  all  that  we  call 
good  in  him,  and  all  that  we  call  bad,  are  a  part  of  the 
universe.  The  God  he  worships  is  his  own  shadow 
cast  upon  the  heavens,  and  the  Devil  he  fears  is 
his  own  shadow  likewise.  The  divine  is  the  human, 
magnified  and  exalted;  the  satanic  is  the  human, 
magnified  and  debased. 

We  find  God  in  Nature  by  projecting  ourselves 
there;  we  find  him  in  the  course  of  history  by  read- 
ing our  own  ideals  into  human  events;  we  find  him 
in  our  daily  fives  by  listening  to  the  whisperings  of 
our  own  inherited  and  acquired  consciences,  and  by 
dwelling  upon  the  fatality  that  rules  our  lives. 

We  had  nothing  to  do  with  our  appearance  here 
in  this  world,  or  with  the  form  our  bodies  take,  or 
with  our  temperaments,  and,  only  in  a  degree,  with 
our  dispositions.  Some  power  other  than  ourselves 
brought  us  here  and  maintains  us  here  for  a  period, 
as  it  brought  here  and  maintains  all  other  forms  of 
life;  but,  I  repeat,  that  power  is  inseparable  from 
the  physical  and  chemical  forces,  and  goes  its  way 
whether  we  prosper  or  perish.  Yet  it  is  more  posi- 
tive than  negative,  more  for  us  than  against  us,  else 
we  should  not  be  here. 

Where  does  man  get  his  ethical  standards?  Where 
45 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

does  he  get  his  eyes,  his  ears,  his  heart?  He  gets 
them  where  he  got  his  hfe  —  from  natural  sources. 
He  gets  them  whence  he  got  his  sense  of  art,  of 
beauty,  of  harmony.  There  are  no  moral  standards 
in  Nature  apart  from  man,  but  as  man  is  a  part  of 
Nature,  so  are  these,  and  all  other  standards.  So  are 
all  religions,  arts,  literatures,  philosophies,  hero- 
isms, self-denials,  as  well  as  all  idolatries,  supersti- 
tions, sorceries,  cruelties,  wrongs,  failures,  a  part  of 
Nature. 

Is  the  big-brained  man  of  to-day  any  less  a  part  of 
Nature  than  the  low-browed,  long-jawed  man  of 
Pliocene  times? 

The  humanization  of  God  leads  us  into  many 
difficulties.  If  He  is  a  personal  being  with  attributes 
and  emotions  like  our  own,  then  we  are  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  He  is  no  better  than  we  are  —  that 
He  has  our  faults  as  well  as  our  virtues,  our  cruelty 
as  well  as  our  love.  He  is  a  party  to  all  the  wrongs 
and  crimes  and  suffering  that  darken  the  earth;  He 
permits  wars  and  pestilence  and  famine  and  earth- 
quakes and  tornadoes,  and  all  the  consuming  and 
agonizing  diseases  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  He  is  an  in- 
finite man  with  infinite  powers  for  good  and  evil. 

In  the  long  drama  of  animal  evolution  there  has 
evidently  been  as  much  suffering  as  pleasure,  and  of 
the  drama  of  human  history  the  same  may  be  said: 
pain,  failure,  delay,  injustice,  to  all  of  which  our 
humanized  God  has  been  a  party.  No  wonder  our 
46 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

fathers  struggled  over  the  problem  of  the  ways  of 
God  to  man.  As  soon  as  they  put  themselves  in  his 
place,  they  felt  the  need  of  some  grounds  upon  which 
to  justify  his  deaUngs  with  the  beings  He  had  cre- 
ated. But  they  searched,  and  their  descendants  still 
search,  in  vain.  If  we  see  God  as  a  man,  no  matter 
how  mighty,  He  is  still  guilty  of  what  few  finite  men 
would  be  guilty.  What  men  would  be  guilty  of  per- 
mitting the  sin  and  misery  that  fill  the  world  at  this, 
or  any  other,  time? 

The  Nature  God  neither  sends  calamities  nor 
wills  them  —  they  are  an  inevitable  part  of  the 
growth  and  development  of  things;  they  are  eddies 
in  the  stream  of  forces.  What  we  call  evil  is  evil  only 
from  our  point  of  view;  evil  is  a  human  word  and 
not  the  word  of  the  Infinite.  If  the  world  were  some- 
thing made  by  a  Maker  external  to  it,  then  it  were 
pertinent  to  ask.  Why  not  make  it  a  better  world? 
Why  not  leave  out  pain  and  sin  and  all  other  phases 
of  evil?  But  the  world  is  not  something  made,  and  it 
did  not  have  a  Maker,  as  we  use  those  words.  The 
universe  is,  and  always  has  been,  "from  everlasting 
to  everlasting,"  and  man  is  a  part  of  it,  and  his  life 
is  subject  to  the  same  vicissitudes  as  the  rest  of  cre- 
ation. Man  has  come  into  this  sense  of  right  and 
wrong,  of  justice  and  mercy,  of  truth  and  false- 
hood, of  good  and  evil,  as  necessary  conditions  of 
his  development,  but  those  things  are  not  abso- 
lute; they  pertain  to  him  alone.  The  physical  forces 
47 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

break  out  of  their  natural  bounds  and  run  riot  for  a 
season ;  the  human  forces  do  the  same  thing  and 
give  rise  to  various  excesses.  The  crimes  and  mis- 
demeanors of  man  are  exceptional  as  the  outbreaks 
In  nature  are  exceptional.  They  relate  man  to  na- 
ture and  show  how  the  same  plan  runs  through  both. 
A  world  with  storm  and  the  warring  and  violence 
of  the  elements  left  out  would  be  a  radically  differ- 
ent world  —  an  impossible  world.  And  a  world  of 
man,  a  Quaker  world,  is  equally  impossible. 

K  some  being  of  infinite  wisdom  and  love  had 
made  the  world  and  made  man  to  live  in  it,  we  could 
ask  him  some  embarrassing  questions;  but,  let  me 
repeat,  the  world  was  not  made,  it  is  only  a  link  in  a 
chain  of  cosmic  events,  and  it  is  not  for  man  any 
more  than  for  any  other  creature.  Each  must  "work 
out  his  own  salvation,  with  fear  and  trembling." 

Introduce  design  into  nature  and  you  humanize 
it  and  get  into  difficulties  at  once.  It  is  above  design. 
We  have  no  language  in  which  to  speak  the  ultimate 
truth,  no  language  in  which  to  describe  the  charac- 
ter and  the  doings  of  the  Infinite.  The  ways  of  the 
Infinite  are  not  only  past  finding  out,  they  are  un- 
speakable by  reason  of  our  finite  relations  to  them. 
We  cannot  arraign  the  Nature  God.  It  does  not  de- 
sign, nor  make,  nor  govern,  nor  employ  means  to 
ends,  as  do  the  man-made  gods.  It  is.  All  things  are 
a  part  of  its  infinite  complexity.  Nature  rests  for- 
ever in  itself.  It  neither  fails  nor  succeeds.  In  itself 
48 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

it  is  neither  good  nor  evil,  neither  divine  nor  devilish; 
it  is  all  things  to  all  men,  because  they  are  all  things 
to  it.  It  is  neither  one  nor  many;  it  is  the  Infinite.  In 
these  vain  attempts  to  define  or  describe  the  inde- 
finable I  have  no  language  but  that  of  the  finite,  no 
language  but  that  of  our  limited  or  circumscribed 
relation  to  the  world  of  concrete  and  fragmentary 
things.  Hence  I  am  constantly  like  the  plains  ranger 
caught  by  his  own  lasso,  or  the  angler  caught  by  his 
own  hook. 

Emerson  said  that  in  trying  to  define  the  Eternal 
we  need  a  language  that  differs  from  our  everyday 
speech  as  much  as  algebra  differs  from  arithmetic. 
Outside  of  the  physical  organism  there  is  neither 
pleasure  nor  pain,  good  nor  bad,  hght  nor  dark, 
sound  nor  silence,  heat  nor  cold,  big  nor  little,  hard 
nor  soft  ;  all  these  things  are  but  words  in  which 
we  describe  our  sensations.  When  there  is  no  ear, 
there  is  no  sound,  but  only  motion  in  the  air;  when 
there  is  no  eye,  there  is  no  light  or  color,  but  only 
motion  in  the  ether;  when  there  are  no  nerves, 
there  is  no  heat  or  cold,  but  only  motion,  more  or 
less,  in  the  molecules  of  matter.  Degrees  and,  dif- 
ferences belong  to  the  region  of  our  finite  minds. 
In  trying  to  define  or  state  the  Infinite,  we  are  off 
the  sphere,  outside  the  realm  of  experience,  and 
our  words  have  no  meaning. 

It  is  the  circular  or  orbicular  character  of  creation 
that  baffles  us.  We  cannot  fit  the  sphere  into  the 
49 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

triangles  and  parallelograms  of  the  terms  of  our  ex- 
perience. We  cannot  square  the  circle  of  Infinity. 
The  terms  "love,"  "anger,"  "mercy,"  "father- 
hood," do  not  apply  to  God  any  more  than  "over" 
or  "under,"  or  "beginning"  or  "end,"  apply  to  the 
sphere.  In  regard  to  God,  the  language  of  science 
and  mathematics  is  one  with  the  language  of  wor- 
ship and  ecstasy. 

I  find  I  have  never  been  burdened  by  a  sense  of 
my  duty  to  God.  My  duty  to  my  fellow-men  and  to 
myself  is  plain  enough,  but  the  word  is  not  adequate 
to  express  any  relation  I  may  hold  to  the  Eternal. 
Do  I  owe  any  duty  to  gravity  without  which  I  could 
not  move  or  lift  my  hand,  or  any  duty  to  the  sun- 
shine or  to  the  rains  and  the  winds?  Instinctively, 
unconsciously,  for  the  most  part  we  obey  tlie  law  of 
gravity,  and  instinctively  we  adjust  ourselves  to  all 
the  natural  forces,  not  from  a  sense  of  duty,  but 
from  a  sense  of  self-preservation.  These  things  are 
a  part  of  our  lives  and  not  something  to  which  we 
hold  only  a  casual  and  precarious  or  external  rela- 
tion. My  relation  to  the  Eternal  is  not  that  of  an  in- 
ferior to  a  superior,  or  of  a  beneficiary  to  his  bene- 
factor, or  of  a  subject  to  his  king.  It  is  that  of  the 
leaf  to  the  branch,  of  the  fruit  to  the  tree,  of  the 
babe  in  the  womb  to  its  mother.  It  is  a  vital  and  an 
inevitable  relation.  It  cannot  be  broken.  It  is  not  a 
matter  of  will  or  choice.  We  are  embosomed  in  the 
Eternal  Beneficence,  whether  we  desire  it  or  not. 
50 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

Those  good  persons  who  go  through  Ufe  looking 
upon  the  Eternal  as  a  power  external  to  themselves, 
saluting  him  as  the  soldier  salutes  his  oflScer,  are  not 
as  truly  religious  as  they  think  they  are.  The  old 
conception  of  an  external  God,  the  supreme  ruler  of 
the  universe,  with  whom  Moses  talked  and  walked 
and  even  saw  the  hinder  parts  of,  is  out  of  date  in 
our  time.  Still  the  overarching  thought  of  the  In- 
finite and  the  Eternal,  in  whom  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being,  must  at  times  awaken  in  the 
minds  of  all  of  us,  and  lend  dignity  and  sobriety  to 
our  lives. 

But  the  other  world  fades  as  this  world  brightens. 
Science  has  made  this  world  so  interesting  and  won- 
derful, and  our  minds  find  such  scope  in  it  for  the 
exercise  of  all  their  powers,  that  thoughts  of  another 
world  are  becoming  foreign  to  us.  We  shall  never 
exhaust  the  beauties  and  the  wonders  and  the 
possibilities  of  this.  To  feel  at  home  on  this  planet, 
and  that  it  is,  with  all  its  drawbacks,  the  best  pos- 
sible world,  I  look  upon  as  the  supreme  felicity  of 
life. 

When  we  look  at  it  in  its  mere  physical  and  chemi- 
cal aspects,  its  play  of  forces,  tangible  and  intan- 
gible, its  reservoir  of  energy,  its  "journeying  of 
atoms,"  its  radiating  electrons,  its  magnetic  cur- 
rents, its  transmutations  and  cycles  of  change,  its 
hidden  but  potent  activities,  its  streaming  auroras, 
its  changing  seasons,  its  myriad  forms  of  life,  and 
51 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

a  thousand  other  things  —  all  make  it  a  unique  and 
most  desirable  habitation. 

When  we  consider  it  in  its  astronomical  aspects 
as  a  celestial  body  floating  in  the  luminiferous  ether 
as  in  a  sea,  held  in  leash  by  the  sun,  and  as  sensitive 
to  its  changes  as  the  poplar  leaf  to  the  wind,  vast 
beyond  our  power  to  visualize,  yet  only  a  grain  of 
sand  on  the  shores  of  the  Infinite,  an  evening  or  a 
morning  star  to  the  beings  on  other  planets,  if  there 
are  such,  mottled  with  shining  seas  or  green  and 
white  continents  and  canopied  with  many-hued 
cloud  draperies,  and  existing  in  closest  intimacies 
with  the  wonders  and  the  potencies  of  the  sidereal 
heavens  —  a  veritable  fruit  on  the  vast  sidereal  tree 
of  life  —  when  we  realize  all  this,  and  more,  can  we 
conceive  of  a  more  desirable  or  a  better-founded 
and  better-furnished  world?  The  voyage  we  make 
upon  it  may  be  a  long  one;  if  we  claim  the  century  of 
life  which  Nature  seems  to  have  allotted  us  on  con- 
ditions, we  shall  travel  about  thirty-six  billions  of 
miles  in  our  annual  voyages  around  the  sun,  and 
how  many  more  millions  with  the  sun  around  his 
sun,  we  know  not.  A  world  made  of  the  common 
stuff  of  the  universe,  a  handful  of  the  dust  of  the 
cosmos,  yet  thrilling  with  life,  producing  the  race  of 
man,  evolving  the  brain  of  Plato,  of  Aristotle,  of 
Bacon,  the  soul  of  Emerson,  of  Whitman,  the  heart 
of  Christ  —  a  heavenly  abode  surely.  Let  us  try  to 
make  amends  for  depreciating  it,  for  spurning  it, 
52 


EACH  FOR  ITS  OWN  SAKE 

for  surrendering  it  to  the  Devil,  and  for  turning 
from  it  in  search  of  a  better. 

Our  reUgion  is  at  fault,  our  saints  have  betrayed 
us,  our  theologians  have  blackened  and  defaced  our 
earthly  temple,  and  swapped  it  off  for  cloud  man- 
sions in  the  Land  of  Nowhere.  The  heavens  embrace 
us  always;  the  far-off  is  here,  close  at  hand;  the 
ground  under  your  door-stone  is  a  part  of  the  morn- 
ing star.  If  we  could  only  puU  ourselves  up  out  of 
our  absorption  in  trivial  affairs,  out  of  the  petty 
turmoil  of  our  practical  lives,  and  see  ourselves  and 
our  world  in  perspective  and  as  a  part  of  the  celes- 
tial order,  we  could  cease  to  weep  and  wail  over  our 
prosaic  existence. 

The  astronomic  view  of  our  world,  and  the  Dar- 
winian view  of  our  hves  must  go  together.  As  one 
came  out  of  the  whirling,  fiery  nebulae,  so  the  other 
came  out  of  the  struggling,  slowly  evolving,  bio- 
logical world  of  the  unicellular  life  of  the  old  seas. 

Biologic  time  sets  its  seal  upon  one,  and  cosmic 
time  upon  the  other.  Dignity  and  beauty  and  mean- 
ing are  given  to  our  lives  when  we  see  far  enough 
and  wide  enough,  when  we  see  the  forces  that  min- 
ister to  us,  and  the  natural  order  of  which  we  f ornc 
a  part. 


IV 

THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

THAT  bodies  rise  in  the  air  does  not  disprove 
gravity;  on  the  contrary,  it  proves  it.  The  pull 
of  gravity  never  lets  go  of  the  bullet  from  the  gun; 
no  matter  how  high  or  how  far  it  goes,  down  it 
comes,  sometime,  somewhere. 

There  is  no  force  when  there  is  nothing  to  resist 
force.  The  force  of  the  chemical  reaction  in  the  gun 
on  the  explosion  of  the  powder  is  hurled  back  by 
the  mass  and  resistance  of  the  gun,  and  sends  the 
bullet  high  or  far,  but  does  not  for  a  second  break 
its  hold  upon  it.  Smoke  rises  because  the  air  falls; 
clouds  float  because  of  the  greater  weight  of  some- 
thing beneath  them.  The  river  flows  because  its 
banks  do  not. 

The  goodness  of  nature  is  the  universal  fact,  like 
gravity,  and  its  evils  and  enmities  and  hindrances 
only  prove  the  law. 

The  waters  of  the  globe  seek  their  level,  seek  to 
reach  a  haven  of  everlasting  repose;  but  behold 
how  that  purpose  is  forever  frustrated,  and  the  cur- 
rents never  cease.  It  is  as  if  the  creeks  and  rivers 
never  reached  the  sea;  they  are  traveling  that  way 
forever;  it  is  as  if  the  great  ocean  currents  and  sub- 
54 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE^ 

marine  Amazons  and  Mississippis  were  seeking  an 
escape  which  they  never  find;  their  quest  is  ever  re- 
newed. Nature  is  Nature  because  her  work  is  never 
complete;  her  journey  is  never  ended;  the  fixity  and 
equihbrium  which  her  elements  appear  to  seek,  is 
ever  deferred;  fife  can  appear  and  go  on  only  in  a 
changing,  unstable  world,  and  it  is  this  flux  and 
mutability  of  things  that  bring  all  our  woe,  and  all 
our  joy  as  well.  If  winds  did  not  blow,  and  bodies 
fall,  and  fire  consume,  and  floods  overpower,  if  the 
equilibrium  of  things  were  not  perpetually  broken, 
—  which  opens  the  door  to  all  our  troubles  and  dis- 
asters, —  where  should  we  find  the  conditions  of  our 
life? 

Life  has  appeared  in  an  unstable  world,  and  is 
conditioned  upon  this  instability.„ Fixity  nieaiis" 
death.  It  is  in  the  line  of  organic  effort  that  living 
forms  appear;  it  is  jp  an  imppirftv^t  world  that,  wp? 

striyg!  for  tb£L..perfs£tion that  we  never  reach. 

Blessed  be  the  fact  that  our  capacity  for  life,  for 
happiness,  is  always  greater  than  the  day  yields. 
Satiety  checks  effort. 

The  Nature  Providence  is  stem  and  even  cruel 
in  some  of  its  dealings  with  us,  but  not  in  all,  else  we 
should  run  away  from  home.  It  is  genial  and  friendly 
in  the  genial  season  —  in  a  June  meadow,  in  a  field 
of  ripening  grain,  in  an  orchard  bending  with  fruit, 
in  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills,  in  the  shade  of  the 
friendly  trees,  in  the  bubbling  springs,  in  the  paths 
55 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

by  the  green  fields  and  by  still  waters,  and  in  ten 
thousand  other  aspects  of  its  manifold  works.  It 
is  not  friendly  in  the  tropical  jungles,  nor  amid  the 
snows  and  blizzards  of  the  polar  regions,  but  upor 
four  fifths  of  the  surface  of  the  globe  it  may  bo 
said  to  be  friendly  or  neutral.  Man  is  armed  to  face 
its  hostile  aspects  and  to  turn  its  very  wrath  to 
account.  If  God  maketh  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise 
Him,  so  man  maketh  the  wrath  of  God  to  serve 
him,  as  when  he  subdues  and  controls  Nature's  de- 
structive forces,  tames  the  lightning  and  harnesses 
Niagara.  He  has  not  bound  the  cyclone  yet,  nor 
warmed  himself  by  the  volcano,  nor  moved  moun- 
tains from  his  path  with  the  earthquake,  but  he 
may  do  it  yet.  He  is  fast  drawing  the  fangs  of 
contagious  diseases,  thus  adding  to  his  length  of 
days. 

The  Nature  Providence  working  in  man  and 
through  him  has  made  the  world  more  fit  for  man's 
abode. 

Action  and  reaction  are  the  steps  by  which  life 
ascends.  Nature  acts  upon  man  and  man  reacts 
upon  nature.  The  labor  the  farmer  puts  into  the  soil 
comes  back  to  him  with  interest,  and  enables  him  to 
labor  more.  The  capital  of  life  grows  in  that  way; 
action  and  reaction;  up  we  go. 

"Are  God  and  Nature  then  at  strife?"  asks  Ten- 
nyson, bajQfled  and  unsettled  by  what  he  sees  about 
him.  There  is  strife  in  the  living  world,  the  struggle 
56 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

of  existence.  In  the  non-living,  there  is  coUision,  dis- 
ruption, overthrow.  The  apparent  strife  between 
the  two  worlds  is  an  effort  toward  adjustment  on 
the  part  of  the  Uving  —  to  master  and  utilize  the 
non-living.  The  inorganic  goes  its  way  under  the 
leash  of  physical  laws,  heedless  of  the  organic.  Myr- 
iads of  living  things  are  crushed  and  destroyed  by 
the  ruthless  onward  flow  of  the  non-living.  There  is 
life  in  the  world  because  life  is  plastic  and  persistent 
and  adaptive,  and  perpetually  escapes  from  the 
blind  forces  that  would  destroy  it  —  the  winds,  the 
floods,  the  frost,  the  heat,  gravity,  earthquakes, 
chemical  reactions,  and  so  on.  Every  living  thing 
runs  the  gantlet  of  the  insensate  mechanical  and 
chemical  forces.  But  this  is  not  strife  in  our  human 
sense;  it  is  the  discipline  of  nature.  No  Hving  thing 
could  begin  or  continue  without  these  forces  which 
at  times  are  so  hostile.  Like  faithful  gardeners  pre- 
paring the  seed-beds,  they  prepared  the  earth  for 
the  abode  of  man  and  all  other  Uving  forms.  They 
made  the  soil,  they  bring  the  rains,  they  begat  the 
winds,  they  prearranged  all  the  conditions  of  life; 
but  life  itself  is  a  mystery,  the  great  mystery,  super- 
mechanical,  super-chemical,  dependent  upon  these 
forces,  but  not  begotten  by  them.  They  are  its 
servants. 

The  struggle  in  the  world  of  living  forms  is  a  con- 
dition of  development,  growing '  things  are  made 
strong  by  the  force  of  the  obstacles  they  overcome. 
57 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

From  our  limited  human  point  of  view  there  are 
phases  of  creation  that  make  it  look  like  a  game  be- 
tween intelligent  contending  forces,  or  as  if  one  god 
tried  to  undo  the  work  of  another  god,  or  at  least  to 
mar  and  hinder  his  work  —  some  mischievous  and 
malignant  spirit  that  sows  tares  amid  the  wheat, 
that  retards  development,  that  invents  parasites, 
that  produces  the  malformed,  that  scatters  the 
germs  of  disease.  How  much  at  heart  Nature  seems 
to  have  the  production  and  well-being  of  offspring, 
yet  what  failures  there  are !  in  the  human  realm  the 
deformed,  the  monstrous,  the  idiotic.  It  seems  as  if 
all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  had  a  stake  in  a  per- 
fect baby  and  in  its  growth  and  development.  A 
land  swarming  with  beautiful  and  happy  children 
should  make  the  very  stars  rejoice.  Motherhood 
itself  is  a  beautiful  and  divine  symbol,  yet  what 
perils  attend  it!  In  many  cases  mother  and  child 
sink  into  the  same  grave.  Then  along  comes  some 
malignant  spirit  and  sows  the  germs  of  inf antUe  pa- 
ralysis, and  great  numbers  of  children  perish,  and 
still  greater  numbers  are  crippled  and  deformed  for 
life.  What  a  miscarriage  of  nature  is  that!  What 
a  calamity,  and  unmitigated  evil ! 

When  an  insect  stings  a  leaf  or  plant-stalk  and 
the  plant  forthwith  builds  a  cradle  and  nursery  for 
the  young  of  the  insect,  that  is  one  form  of  life  using 
another  form;  or  when  a  parasitical  bird,  such  as 
the  European  cuckoo,  or  our  cowbird,  lays  its  egg  in 
58 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

the  nest  of  another  bird,  that  is  the  same  thing  — 
life  is  still  triumphant.  But  when  the  germs  of  a 
contagious  disease  —  tuberculosis,  diphtheria,  scar- 
let fever  —  invade  the  human  system  and  finally 
result  in  its  destruction,  then  dissolution  is  trium- 
phant; all  this  delicately  and  elaborately  organized 
matter  comes  to  naught.  In  this  we  see  the  failure 
of  the  tendency  or  impulsion  in  matter  which  re- 
sults in  organization — the  mystery  and  the  miracle 
of  vitaUty,  as  Tyndall  called  it,  and  the  triumph 
of  the  contrary  impulse  or  disorganization,  unless 
we  regard  the  destructive  and  death-dealing  germs 
themselves  as  a  triumph  of  organization,  which, 
from  the  scientific  point  of  view,  they  surely  are. 
Then  we  have  Nature  playing  one  hand  against  the 
other.  From  our  point  of  view  it  is  like  pulling 
down  a  temple  and  reducing  the  bricks  and  stones 
to  dust  for  the  use  of  ants.  But  who  shall  say  that 
Nature  is  not  just  as  careful  of  the  ant  as  of  the 
man?  —  which  is,  of  course,  a  distasteful  bit  of 
news  to  the  man. 

When  one  thinks  of  the  myriads  of  minute  living 
organisms  that  pervade  and  make  up  his  own  body, 
of  their  struggles  and  activities,  their  antagonisms 
and  cooperations,  their  victories  and  defeats, — the 
cells  cooperating  and  building  up  the  organs,  the 
organs  cooperating  and  building  up  the  body,  the 
phagocytes  policing  the  blood  and  destroying  the  in 
vading  germs,  the  intestinal  flora  contending  with 
59 


'  ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

one  another  for  the  possession  of  the  soil,  the  fer- 
ments, the  enzymes,  —  when  one  thinks  of  all  this 
and  more,  and  how  little  aware  the  man  is  of  all 
this  strife  and  effort  and  activity  within  him,  — 
how  he  himself,  body  and  mind,  is  the  result  of  it 
all,  —  one  has  a  dim  vision  of  all  our  strife  and  effort 
in  this  world  as  a  part  of  the  vital  movements  of  a 
vast  system  of  things,  or  of  a  Being  that  is  no  more 
cognizant  of  our  wars  and  struggles  and  triumphs 
than  we  are  of  the  histories  of  the  little  people  that 
keep  up  the  functional  integrity  of  our  own  systems. 

Man  can  himself  make  short  work  of  the  ants 
unless  he  encounters  their  devouring  hosts  in  a 
tropical  jungle,  in  which  case  they  may  make 
short  work  of  him.  He  can  often  slay  with  his  an- 
tiseptics the  disease  germs  that  are  destroying  him, 
but  not  always;  the  balance  of  nature  is  often  on 
their  side.  Whichever  triumphs.  Nature  wins,  be- 
cause all  are  parts  of  her  system.  The  capital  in- 
vested is  hers  alone.  Man  thinks  a  part  of  it  is 
his,  because  he  forgets  that  he  too  is  a  part  of 
Nature,  and  that  whatever  is  his,  is  hers. 

How  are  we  to  reconcile  the  obvious  facts  of 
evolution,  namely,  that  throughout  the  biological 
ages  there  has  been  an  impulse  in  Nature  steadily 
working  toward  the  development  of  man,  with  the 
still  more  obvious  fact  that  Nature  cares  no  more 
for  the  individual  man  than  she  does  for  the  in- 
dividual of  any  other  species  ?  She  will  drown  him, 
60 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

starve  him,  freeze  him,  crush  him,  as  quickly  as  she 
will  any  other  form  of  life.  Is  the  account  balanced 
by  the  fact  that  she  has  given  him  the  wit  and  the 
power  to  avoid  these  calamities  in  a  larger  measure 
than  she  has  given  them  to  any  other  creature?  That 
is  the  way  the  great  mystery  works.  Every  creature 
is  exposed  to  the  hazards  of  its  kind,  but  within  its 
reach  are  always  the  benefits  and  advantages  of  its 
kind,  and  these  latter  have  steadily  kept  in  the  lead. 
The  evolutionary  impulse  toward  the  horse,  toward 
the  dog,  toward  the  bird,  has  apparently  been  as 
jealously  guarded  and  promoted  as  the  impulse  to- 
ward man.  Man  in  his  own  conceit  is  at  the  head  of 
the  animal  kingdom,  and  the  whole  creation  is  for 
him,  though  there  are  other  animals  that  surpass 
him  in  strength,  speed,  and  endurance.  But  he 
alone  masters  and  makes  servants  of  the  inorganic 
forces,  and  thus  rules  the  world  below  him. 

I  set  out  to  say  that  the  beneficent  force  or 
Providence  that  brought  us  here  has  had  to  struggle 
with  the  non-beneficent  in  inert  matter,  and,  at 
times,  with  what  looks  like  the  deliberately  malig- 
nant in  living  matter;  micro-organisms  everywhere 
lying  in  wait  for  tangible  bodies  and  reducing  them 
back  to  the  original  dust  out  of  which  they  came  — 
the  work  of  one  god  being  held  up  or  wrecked  by 
another  god.  In  the  vegetable  kingdom  are  blights 
and  scabs  and  many  forms  of  fungous  diseases;  in 
the  animal  are  hostile  bacteria  and  parasites  work- 
61 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

ing  without  and  within.  Little  wonder  our  fathers 
had  to  invent  a  Devil,  or  a  hierarchy  of  good  and 
evil  spirits  contending  with  one  another,  to  explain 
the  enigmas  of  life!  But  that  the  good  spirits  have 
prevailed  over  their  enemies,  that  the  Natural 
Providence  has  been  on  our  side,  is,  as  I  have 
pointed  out,  proved  by  the  fact  that  we  are  actu- 
ally here,  and  that  life  is  good  to  us. 

The  evil  of  the  world  is  seen  to  be  ingrained  in  the 
nature  of  things,  and  it  has  been  a  spur  to  develop- 
ment. All  the  great  human  evils  have  been  dis- 
ciplinary. There  is  always  a  surplusage,  rarely  just 
enough  and  no  more.  The  gods  of  life  rarely  make  a 
clean,  neat  job  of  it;  there  are  needless  pains,  need- 
less wastes,  needless  failures,  needless  delays.  The 
good  of  war  —  the  fortitude,  the  self-denial,  the 
heroism  —  we  cannot  separate  from  the  evil;  the 
good  of  avarice  or  greed  —  industry,  thrift,  fore- 
sight—  we  cannot  separate  from  the  evil.  The 
wealth-gatherers  keep  the  currents  going,  they  sub- 
due the  wilderness,  they  reclaim  the  deserts,  they 
develop  the  earth's  resources,  they  extend  the 
boundaries  of  civilization,  but  the  evils  that  follow 
in  their  train  are  many  and  great.  Yet  how  are  we  to 
have  the  one  without  the  other?  Disease  is  also  a 
kind  of  trial  by  battle;  it  weeds  out  the  weak,  the 
physically  unfit,  and  hardens  and  toughens  the 
race. 

The  Natural  Providence  does  not  study  economy, 
62 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

it  is  not  in  business  with  rivals  and  competitors; 
bankruptcy  is  not  one  of  its  dangers,  it  can  always 
meet  its  obligations;  all  the  goods  and  all  the  gold 
and  silver  in  the  universe  belong  to  it.  Its  methods 
are  too  vast  and  complex  for  our  ideas  of  prudence 
and  economy.  We  cannot  deal  with  the  whole,  but 
only  with  its  parts.  There  are  no  lines  and  bound- 
aries to  the  sphere,  and  no  well-defined  cleavage 
between  the  good  and  the  evil  in  nature  and  in  life. 
The  broad  margin  of  needless  misery  and  waste  in 
the  life  of  a  man  as  of  a  nation  is  a  part  of  the  in- 
exactitude and  indifference  that  pervades  the  whole 
of  nature.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Natural 
Providence  it  does  not  matter,  the  result  is  sure; 
but  from  our  point  of  view  —  victims  of  cyclones, 
earthquakes,  wars,  famines,  pestilence  as  we  are  — 
it  matters  a  great  deal.  The  streams  and  rivers 
throughout  the  land  are  bearers  of  many  blessings; 
the  evils  they  bring  are  minor  and  are  soon  for- 
gotten. 

The  whole  living  world  is  so  interrelated  and  inter- 
dependent, and  hinges  so  completely  upon  the  non- 
living, that  our  analysis  and  interpretation  of  it 
must  of  necessity  be  very  imperfect.  But  the  crea- 
tive energy  works  to  no  specific  ends,  or  rather  it 
works  to  all  ends.  As  every  point  on  the  surface  of 
the  globe  is  equally  on  the  top  at  all  times,  so  the 
whole  system  of  hving  nature  balances  on  any  given 
object.  I  saw  a  book  of  poems  recently,  called  "The 
63 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Road  to  Everywhere "  —  vague  as  Nature  herself. 
All  her  roads  are  roads  to  everywhere.  They  may 
lead  you  to  your  own  garden,  or  to  the  North  Pole, 
or  to  the  fixed  stars,  or  may  end  where  they  began. 

Nature  is  a  great  traveler,  but  she  never  gets 
away  from  home;  she  takes  all  her  possessions  along 
with  her,  and  her  course  is  without  direction,  and 
without  beginning  or  end.  The  most  startling  con- 
tradiction you  can  make  expresses  her  best.  She  is 
the  sum  of  all  opposites,  the  success  of  all  failures, 
the  good  of  all  evil. 

When  we  think  we  have  cut  out  Nature,  we  have 
only  substituted  another  phase;  when  our  balloon 
mounts  in  spite  of  gravity,  it  is  still  gravity  that 
makes  it  mount;  when  we  clear  the  soil  of  its  nat- 
ural growth  and  plant  our  own  crop,  Nature  is  still 
our  gardener;  we  have  only  placed  other  seeds  of 
her  own  in  her  hands.  When  we  have  improved 
upon  her,  we  have  only  prevailed  upon  her  to  second 
our  efforts;  we  get  ahead  of  her  by  following  out  the 
hints  she  gives  us;  when  we  trump  her  trick,  it  is 
with  her  own  cards.  When  we  fancy  we  assist  Na- 
ture, as  we  say  that  we  do  with  our  drugs,  it  is  she 
who  gives  the  efficiency  to  the  drugs.  We  may 
fancy  that  the  sun  is  in  the  heavens  solely  to  give 
light  and  warmth  to  the  planets,  which  it  surely 
does,  but  behold,  what  a  mere  fraction  of  the  light 
and  heat  of  the  sun  is  intercepted  by  the  slender 
girdle  of  worlds  that  surround  it!  The  rays  go  out 
64 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

equally  in  all  directions,  they  penetrate  all  space. 
The  sun,  with  reference  to  its  light  and  heat,  is  at 
the  center  of  an  infinite  hollow  sphere,  and  not  one 
millionth  part  of  its  rays  falls  upon  the  worlds  that 
circle  around  it.  This  is  typical  of  Nature's  bounty. 
The  thought  and  solicitude  of  the  creative  energy 
is  directed  to  me  and  you  personally  in  the  same 
wholesale   way.  The  planets    of   our  system  are 
lighted  and  warmed  as  effectually  as  if  the  sun  shone 
for  them  alone,  and  man  is  the  beneficiary  of  the 
heavens  as  completely  as  if  indeed  the  whole  crea- 
tion were  directed  especially  to  him.  Here  is  another 
point :  the  night  and  darkness  in  nature  are  local  and 
limited;  the  universe  is  flooded  with  light;  the  black 
shadows  themselves  are  born  of  the  light.  Though 
astronomers  tell  us  that  sidereal  space  is  strewn  with 
dead  worlds  and  extinct  suns,  give  time  enough  and 
they  will  all  be  quickened  and  rekindled.  Light  and 
life  are  the  positive  facts  in  nature,  darkness  and 
death  the  negative. 

When  we  single  out  man  and  fix  our  attention 
upon  him  as  the  sole  end  of  creation,  and  judge  the 
whole  by  his  partial  standards,  man  — 

"Who  trusted  God  was  love  indeed 
And  love  Creation's  final  law  — 
Though  Nature,  red  in  tooth  and  claw 
With  ravine,  shrieked  against  his  creed"  — 

when  we  do  this,  all  is  confusion  and  contradiction. 

Love  is  "creation's  final  law,"  but  not  the  love  of 

65 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

the  mother  for  her  child,  or  even  of  the  bird  for  its 
young,  but  the  love  of  the  eye  for  the  Hght,  of  the 
flower  for  the  sun,  the  love  of  the  plants  for  the  rain 
and  the  dew,  the  love  of  man  for  his  kind,  and  of  the 
dog  for  his  kind.  Attraction,  aflfiliation,  assimila- 
tion —  like  unto  like  is  the  rule  of  life. 

The  organism  fits  itself  to  its  environment;  the 
Providence  in  Nature  enables  it  to  do  so.  The  light 
is  not  fitted  to  the  eye;  the  light  creates  the  eye;  the 
vibrations  in  the  air  create  the  ear.  God,  or  the 
Eternal,  is  love  because  He  brooded  man  into  being, 
and  all  other  forms  of  life  that  support  man.  He 
made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  for  man's  good,  by 
making  man  a  part  of  them  and  able  to  avail  him- 
self of  their  bounty.  But  when  we  look  forth  into 
the  universe,  and  expect  to  see  something  like  hu- 
man care  and  affection  in  the  operation  of  the  great 
elemental  laws  and  forces,  we  are  bound  to  be 
shocked.  It  is  not  there,  and  well  that  it  is  not.  A 
universe  run  on  the  principles  of  human  economy, 
human  charity,  and  partiality  would  be  a  failure. 
It  is  our  human  weakness  that  yearns  for  this.  It 
is  our  earthly  father  that  has  begotten  in  us  our 
conception  of  a  heavenly  father.  But  then  this  very 
conception  and  desire  is  a  part  of  nature  —  springs 
from  the  Eternal,  and  is  in  that  sense  authen- 
tic. We  cannot  separate  ourselves  from  nature,  or 
from  the  Eternal,  any  more  than  we  can  jump  off 
the  planet.  It  is  only  the  conception  of  a  human  or 
66 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

man-made  God  that  men  rebel  against.  Thus  comes 
in  the  discord  that  Tennyson  sees  and  feels.  He  is 
looking  for  a  human  providence  in  nature.  Wisdom, 
love,  mercy,  justice,  are  human  attributes.  We  call 
them  divine,  and  it  is  well,  but  they  do  not  exist 
outside  of  man.  Man  is  himself  the  only  God,  and 
he  was  evolved  from  nature.  The  divine  and  the 
godlike  are  therefore  in  nature;  yes,  in  conjunction 
with  what  we  caU  the  demoniacal  —  love  twined 
with  enmity,  the  good  a  partner  with  the  bad. 

"I  bring  to  life,  I  bring  to  death; 
The  spirit  does  but  mean  the  breath." 

Plagues  and  famines  and  wars  are  fortuitous  and 
not  a  part  of  the  regular  order  like  health,  or  growth, 
or  development.  They  are  accidents  of  nature.  The 
cloud-burst  that  sends  the  creek  out  of  its  banks  is 
an  accident  in  the  same  sense;  it  is  an  exceptional 
occurrence.  If  the  fountains  of  nature  were  not  full 
enough  and  permanent  enough  to  stand  such  drains, 
or  if  the  tendency  in  nature  to  a  certain  order  and 
moderation  were  less  marked,  life  would  disappear 
from  the  globe.  Nature's  capital  of  life  is  invested  in 
ten  thousand  enterprises  and  the  risks  are  many,  but 
if  the  gains  did  not  exceed  the  losses,  if  more  seeds 
did  not  fall  upon  fertile  places  than  upon  barren, 
if  more  babies  did  not  survive  than  perish,  what 
would  become  of  us?  In  our  human  schemes  we  aim 
to  cut  out  losses,  waste,  delays  and  failure,  and 
arraign  the  Eternal  when  it  does  not  follow  the 
67 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

same  methods.  But  so  far  as  I  can  see  all  that  the 
Eternal  aims  at  in  the  vast  business  of  the  universe 
is  to  keep  the  capital  unimpaired  and  live  on  the  in- 
come. The  inroads  which  storms,  pestilence,  earth- 
quakes make  upon  it  are  soon  made  good  and  some 
interest  does  accrue.  Life  does  advance. 

In  the  course  of  the  biologic  ages  there  has  been  a 
great  loss  in  species,  apparently  without  any  loss  in 
the  development  impulse.  New  species  appear  as 
the  old  disappear.  Nature's  investment  in  mere 
size  and  brute  strength  was  doubtless  a  good  one 
under  the  conditions,  but  she  gradually  changed  it 
and  began  to  lay  the  emphasis  upon  size  of  brain 
and  complexity  of  nervous  system,  just  as  man  in 
his  material  civilization  has  passed  from  the  simple 
to  the  complex,  from  the  go-cart  to  the  automobile, 
from  the  signal  fires  to  telegraph  and  telephone. 
The  failures  and  shortcomings  of  the  Eternal,  as 
well  as  the  progress  of  its  work,  are  analogous  to 
those  of  man.  Indeed,  God  is  no  more  a  god  than 
man  is.  He  evinces  the  same  methods,  the  same 
mixture  of  good  and  evil,  the  same  progress  from 
the  simple  to  the  complex,  the  same  survival  of 
the  fittest.  We  exalt  and  magnify  our  little  human 
attributes  and  name  it  God ;  we  magnify  and  in- 
tensify our  bad  traits  and  call  it  the  Devil.  One 
is  as  real  as  the  other.  Both  are  real  to  the  imagi- 
nation of  man,  but  Nature  knows  them  not,  except 
so  far  as  she  knows  them  in  and  through  man. 
68 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

On  a  midsummer  day,  calm,  clear,  warm,  the 
leaves  shining,  the  grain  and  grass  ripening,  the 
waters  sparkling,  the  birds  singing,  we  see  and 
feel  the  beneficence  of  Nature.  How  good  it  all  isi 
What  a  joy  to  be  alive !  If  the  day  were  to  end  in  a 
fury  of  wind  and  storm,  breaking  the  trees,  unroof- 
ing the  houses,  and  destroying  the  crops,  we  should 
be  seeing  the  opposite  side  of  Nature,  what  we  call 
the  malevolent  side.  Fair  days  now  and  then  have 
such  endings,  but  they  are  the  exception;  living 
nature  survives  them  and  soon  forgets  them.  Their 
scars  may  long  remain,  but  they  finally  disappear. 
Total  nature  is  overpoweringly  on  the  side  of  life. 
But  for  all  this,  when  we  talk  about  the  father- 
hood of  God,  his  loving  solicitude,  we  talk  in  para- 
bles. There  is  not  even  the  shadow  of  analogy  be- 
tween the  wholesale  bounty  of  Nature  and  the  care 
and  providence  of  a  human  father.  Striding  through 
the  universe  goes  the  Eternal,  crushed  worlds  on 
one  hand  and  worlds  being  created  on  the  other: 
no  special  act  of  love  or  mercy  or  guidance,  but  a 
providence  like  the  rains,  the  sunshine,  the  seasons. 

When  we  say  hard  things  about  Nature  —  accuse 
her  of  cruelty,  of  savagery,  of  indifiFerence  —  we  fall 
short  of  our  proper  filial  respect  toward  her.  She  is 
the  mother  of  us  all;  neither  an  indulgent  mother, 
nor  a  cruel  stepmother.  In  many  respects  the  gifts 
she  has  lavished  upon  us  only  make  her  own  poverty 
the  more  conspicuous.  Where  she  got  the  gift  of 
69 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

reason  which  she  has  bestowed  upon  man,  together 
with  the  sense  of  justice  and  of  mercy,  the  moral 
consciousness,  the  aesthetic  perceptions,  the  capac- 
ity for  learning  her  secrets  and  mastering  her 
forces,  are  puzzling  questions.  We  may  say  that 
man  achieved  these  things  himself;  but  who  or 
what  made  him  capable  of  achieving  them,  what 
made  him  man,  and  out  of  the  same  elements  that 
his  dog  or  his  horse  is  made? 

Nature  does  not  reason;  she  has  no  moral  con- 
sciousness; she  does  not  economize  her  resources; 
she  is  not  efficient,  she  is  wasteful  and  dilatory,  and 
spends  with  one  hand  what  she  saves  with  the  other. 
She  is  blind;  her  method  is  the  hit-and-miss  method 
of  a  man  who  fights  in  the  dark.  She  hits  her  mark, 
not  because  she  aims  at  it,  but  because  she  shoots  in 
all  directions.  She  fills  the  air  with  her  bullets.  She 
wants  to  plant  in  yonder  marsh  her  cat-tail  flag,  or 
her  purple  loosestrife,  and  she  trusts  her  seeds  to 
every  wind  that  blows,  and  to  the  foot  of  every 
bird  that  visits  her  marshes,  no  matter  which  way 
they  are  going.  And  in  time  her  marsh  gets  planted. 
The  pollen  from  her  trees  and  plants  drifts  in  clouds 
in  order  that  one  minute  grain  of  it  may  find  the 
pistil  that  is  waiting  for  it  somewhere  in  the  next 
wood  or  field.  She  trusts  her  nuts  to  every  vaga- 
bond jay  or  crow  or  squirrel  that  comes  along,  in 
hopes  that  some  of  them  will  be  dropped  or  hidden 
and  thus  get  planted.  She  trims  her  trees,  and  thins 
70 


THE  UNIVERSAL  BENEFICENCE 

her  forests,  or  reforests  her  lands,  in  the  most 
roundabout,  dilatory,  and  inefficient  manner.  No 
plan,  no  system,  no  economy  of  efiFort  or  of  material; 
and  yet  she  "gets  there,"  because  she  is  not  limited 
as  to  time  or  resources.  She  is  in  business  with  un- 
limited capital  and  unlimited  opportunities;  she  has 
no  competitors;  her  stockholders  are  all  of  one 
mind,  and  all  roads  lead  to  her  markets.  The  winds, 
the  streams,  the  rains,  the  snows,  fire,  flood,  tornado, 
earthquake,  are  all  her  servitors.  She  does  not  stick 
for  the  best  end  of  the  bargain,  the  gain  is  hers  who- 
ever wins. 

But  behold  how  she  has  endowed  man  to  im- 
prove upon  all  her  slack  and  roundabout  methods! 
She  enables  him  to  cheat,  and  mislead,  and  circum- 
vent her.  He  steals  her  secrets,  he  tames  her  very 
lightnings,  he  forces  her  hand  on  a  hundred  occa- 
sions; he  turns  her  rivers,  he  levels  her  hills,  he  ob- 
literates her  marshes,  he  makes  her  deserts  bloom  as 
the  rose;  he  measures  her  atoms  and  surveys  and 
weighs  her  orbs;  he  reads  her  history  in  the  rocks,  he 
finds  out  her  ways  in  the  heavens.  He  discovers  the 
most  completely  hidden  thing  in  the  universe,  the 
ether,  and  he  has  learned  how  to  use  it  for  his  own 
purposes;  his  wireless  telegraphy  turns  it  into  a 
news  highway;  above  the  seas,  over  the  mountains, 
and  across  continents,  it  carries  his  messages. 

In  man  Nature  has  evolved  the  human  from  the 
unhuman;  she  has  evolved  justice  and  mercy  from 
71 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

rapine  and  cruelty;  she  has  evolved  the  civic  from 
the  domestic,  the  state  from  the  tribe.  She  has 
evolved  the  Briton  and  the  Frenchman  from  rude 
prehistoric  man.  She  has  not  yet  got  rid  of  the  Hun 
in  the  German,  but  she  is  fast  getting  rid  of  the 
German  in  her  overseas  Germanic  stock.  The 
bleaching  process  goes  on  apace. 

Man  sees  where  Nature  is  blind;  he  takes  a 
straight  cut  where  she  goes  far  around.  In  him  she 
has  added  reason  to  her  impulse,  conscience  to  her 
blind  forces,  self-denial  to  her  seK-indulgence,  the 
power  of  choice  to  her  iron  necessity.  How  well  she 
has  done  by  man,  man  alone  knows.  How  much  he 
is  dependent  upon  her,  he  alone  knows;  how  com- 
pletely he  is  a  part  of  her,  he  alone  knows.  We  may 
call  man  an  insurgent  in  her  world,  as  an  English 
scientist  does,  but  he  is  her  insurgent;  she  inspires 
him  to  insurrection,  and  she  puts  his  weapons  in  his 
hands.  His  cause  is  her  cause,  and  his  victories  are 
her  victories. 

Only  by  personifying  Nature  in  this  way,  and 
standmg  apart  from  her  and  regarding  her  ob- 
jectively, can  we  contrast  her  methods  and  her 
spirit  with  our  own.  The  mother  she  has  been  to  us 
becomes  apparent.  In  spite  of  all  her  short-comings 
and  delays  and  roundabout  methods,  here  we  are, 
and  here  we  wish  to  remain. 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

I 

THIS  is  not  an  essay  on  the  optimism  of  a  moral- 
ist, but  on  the  optimism  of  a  naturaUst. 
On  the  whole  and  in  the  long  mn,  as  I  am 
never  tired  of  asserting,  Nature  is  good.  The  uni- 
verse has  not  miscarried.  The  celestial  laws,  as 
Whitman  says,  do  not  need  to  be  worked  over  and 
rectified.  It  is  good  to  be  here,  and  it  must  be  equally 
good  to  go  hence.  With  all  the  terrible  things  in 
Nature,  and  all  the  cruel  and  wicked  things  in  his- 
tory, the  world  is  good;  life  is  good,  and  the  Devil 
himself  plays  a  good  part. 

When  Emerson  in  his  Journal  says,  "It  is  very- 
odd  that  Nature  should  be  so  unscrupulous.  She 
is  no  saint,"  one  wonders  just  what  he  means.  Does 
he  expect  gravity,  or  fire,  or  flood,  or  wind,  or  tide 
to  have  scruples.?  Should  the  cat  have  scruples 
about  dining  off  the  mouse  or  the  bird,  or  the  wolf 
about  making  a  meal  of  the  lamb?  or  the  plants  and 
trees  have  scruples  about  running  their  roots  into 
one  another's  preserves,  or  cutting  off  one  anotherV 
rain  or  sunshine?  If  our  cowbird  had  the  humaL. 
conscience,  we  should  expect  her  to  have  scruples 
about  laying  her  egg  in  the  nest  of  another  bird 
73 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

and  thus  shirking  the  labors  and  cares  of  parent- 
hood, and  we  should  expect  the  jays  and  crows  to 
have  scruples  about  eating  up  the  eggs  and  young 
of  their  feathered  neighbors,  if  they,  too,  were 
endowed  with  conscience.  But  none  of  them  are 
troubled  in  this  way,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
they  are  not  human  beings.  They  live  below  the 
plane  of  man's  moral  conscience.  Chemistry  and 
the  elementary  forces  have  no  scruples.  Powder  or 
dynamite  wiU  blow  up  its  maker  as  soon  as  it  will 
any  one  else.  The  rain  does  not  scruple  to  spoil  the 
farmer's  hay,  or  the  floods  to  wash  away  his  house 
and  destroy  its  inmates. 

We  are  childish  when  we  marvel  at  the  unscrupu- 
lousness  of  Nature.  Emerson  often  appealed  to  the 
nature  of  things.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that 
they  should  be  what  we  name  unscrupulous;  cer- 
tainly Nature  "is  no  saint,"  and  it  is  well  for  us  that 
she  is  not.  If  we  identify  Nature  with  what  we  call 
God,  as  many  do,  then  I  am  saying  that  it  is  well 
for  us  that  the  Eternal  is  "no  saint."  I  suspect  that 
if  the  drama  of  life  which  has  been  enacted  upon 
the  globe,  and  is  still  being  enacted,  had  been 
modeled  upon  the  principle  of  sainthood,  you  and 
I  would  not  now  be  here.  More's  the  pity,  you  may 
say,  but  there  is  no  pity  in  Nature. 

II 
Is  Nature  then  of  the  Devil?  If  we  choose  to  name 

74 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

it  so,  —  if  we  choose  to  revert  to  the  conception  of 
an  earlier  age,  —  yes.  Nature,  as  we  see  her  from  our 
limited  human  point  of  view,  is  more  or  less  of  the 
Devil  —  half  god  and  half  demon,  we  may  say;  di- 
vine in  some  of  her  manifestations  and  diabolical  in 
others,  divine  when  she  favors  us  and  diabolical 
when  she  is  against  us.  But  what  we  do  not  so  read- 
ily see  is  that  in  the  long  run  the  Devil  is  on  our 
side  also,  that  he  is  the  divine  wearing  a  mask.  The 
Devil  is  the  absence  of  something;  he  is  a  negative 
quantity  that  stimulates  the  positive  and  sets  and 
keeps  the  currents  going.  Our  breathing  is  the  result 
of  a  perpetual  tendency  to  a  vacuum  in  our  lungs; 
the  growth  of  our  bodies  is  the  result  of  a  coopera- 
tion and  agreement  between  the  integrating  and 
disintegrating  forces. 

We  control  the  Devil  and  make  him  our  friend 
when  we  control  most  of  the  forces  of  nature  —  the 
fire,  the  wind,  the  waters,  electricity,  magnetism, 
gravity,  chemical  aflfinity,  and  so  on.  If  our  hold 
upon  them  slips,  they  destroy  us.  If  we  are  not 
watchful  in  our  laboratories,  the  same  chemistry 
that  builds  up  our  bodies  will  blow  our  bodies  to 
atoms.  The  tornado,  the  earthquake,  the  volcano, 
the  thunderbolt,  have  all  helped  to  make  the  earth 
what  we  behold  it.  The  floods  have  helped,  the  ava- 
lanches have  helped,  frost  and  wind  and  snow,  tropic 
heat  and  arctic  cold,  have  helped.  These  devils  are 
the  hod-carriers  that  serve  the  divine  mason  —  the 
75 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

mixers  and  builders,  the  plowers  and  the  planters, 
the  levelers  and  the  engineer.  Hence,  I  say:  "Good 
Devil,  be  thou  my  friend;  you  give  me  power,  you 
sharpen  my  wits,  you  make  a  man  of  me." 

This  is  the  tangible,  physical  Devil;  the  intangi- 
ble, moral  Devil  is  not  so  easily  dealt  with.  It  is  not 
so  easy  to  turn  the  spirit  of  crime,  intemperance, 
cruelty,  war,  superstition,  greed,  and  so  on  to  our 
advantage.  Yet  there  also  is  power  going  to  waste 
or  misdirected.  There  is  a  light  under  the  feet  of 
these  things  also.  Trade,  out  of  which  has  come 
greed,  has  opened  up  and  humanized  the  world; 
war  has  often  grafted  a  superior  stock  upon  an  in 
ferior. 

"It  was  for  Beauty  that  the  world  was  made." 
Emerson  quotes  this  verse  from  Ben  Jonson  and 
says  that  it  is  better  than  any  single  line  of  Tenny- 
son's "In  Memoriam."  Only  the  poet  is  allowed  to 
make  such  extravagant  statements.  We  cannot  in 
soberness  and  truth  say  that  the  world  was  made 
for  any  particular  end.  It  is  out  of  a  certain  har- 
mony of  the  elements  that  we  arose  and  our  sense 
of  beauty  was  developed,  but  the  world  exists  for 
as  many  ends  as  we  have  power  to  conceive.  Order, 
harmony,  rhythm,  compensation,  equilibrium,  cir- 
cles, spheres,  are  fundamental  in  nature.  Music, 
which  is  beauty  to  the  ear,  hath  power  over  inert 
matter.  In  the  Mammoth  Cave  the  very  rocks  will 
sing  if  you  speak  to  them  in  the  right  key.  How 
76 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

steel  filings  on  a  metal  surface  will  dance  and  ar- 
range themselves  in  symmetrical  groups  under  the 
influence  of  musical  chords!  Harmony  is  at  the 
heart  of  nature,  but,  in  the  music  of  creation,  dis- 
harmony plays  a  part  also.  The  world  is  not  all 
beautiful  unless  seen  as  a  whole;  all  its  discords 
are  harmonized  in  the  curve  of  the  sphere.  Emer- 
son's own  line, "  Beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being," 
is  better  and  truer  than  the  one  he  quotes  from 
Ben  Jonson. 

When  saying  that  in  the  music  of  creation  dishar- 
mony plays  a  part  also,  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that 
this  is  not  also  true  inhuman  music.  The  dissonances 
are  just  as  much  a  part  of  great  music  as  are  the 
harmonies.  What  would  the  operas  of  Wagner  be 
without  the  tremendous  dissonances?  That  is  what 
makes  Wagner  one  of  the  greatest  in  music;  he 
sees  things  whole,  just  as  Whitman  does  in  his  art 
—  sees  that  "all  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous 
whole,"  and  that  the  merely  pretty  in  music,  in 
poetry,  in  any  art,  as  in  nature,  is  only  one  little 
phase  of  it,  only  an  arc  of  the  great  circle. 

Ill 

What  trouble  we  get  into  when  we  identify  God 
with  Nature !  and  what  trouble  we  get  into  when  we 
refuse  to  identify  the  two!  In  the  first  case  we 
reach  the  unity  that  the  mind  craves,  but  it  is  a 
unity  made  up  of  those  antagonisms  which  revolt 
77 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

us.  In  the  second  case  it  is  a  duality  that  leaves 
half  of  the  world  to  the  Devil. 

We  select  what  we  call  the  divine  and  stand  con- 
fused and  abashed  before  the  residue.  We  must 
either  change  our  notion  about  the  power  we  call 
God  and  make  it  all-inclusive,  embracing  evil  as 
well  as  good,  or  else  we  must  change  our  notion 
about  Nature  and  see  no  evil  in  her.  God  and  Nature 
are  one.  If  they  are  two,  who  or  what  is  the  second? 

How  can  we  fail  to  see  that  all  the  shaded  part 
of  the  picture  is  necessary  to  the  picture  —  that  aU 
high  lights  would  not  make  a  picture,  but  only  a 
daub;  and  that  all  that  we  call  good  would  not  make 
a  world  in  which  men  could  live  and  develop?  Life 
goes  on  under  conditions  more  or  less  antagonistic. 
The  antagonism  gives  the  power ;  the  friction  de- 
velops electricity.  The  vices  and  crimes  and  follies 
and  excesses  of  society  are  the  riot  and  overflow  of 
the  virtues.  The  pride  of  the  rich,  the  tyranny  of 
power,  the  lust  of  gain,  the  riot  of  sensuality,  are 
all  a  little  too  much  of  a  good  thing  —  a  little  too 
much  heat  or  light  or  rain  or  frost  or  snow  or  food 
or  drink.  There  can  be  no  perversions  till  there  is 
something  good  to  pervert,  no  counterfeits  till  there 
is  first  the  genuine  article. 

The  currents  of  wild  life  get  out  of  their  banks 

and  we  have,  for  example,  a  plague  of  locusts  or 

moths  or  forest  worms,  but  the  natural  check  surely 

comes.    The    military   spirit   of   Germany,  which 

78 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

springs  from  a  laudable  devotion  to  the  state  and  to 
the  good  of  all,  got  out  of  its  banks  and  brought  on 
the  World  War,  but  the  flood  has  subsided  and  will 
probably  be  so  dyked  that  it  can  never  get  out 
again.  It  will  find  its  outlet  in  the  arts  of  peace. 

IV 

The  so-called  laws  of  Nature  were  not  designed 
and  decreed  as  our  human  laws  are.  There  is  no 
great  lawgiver.  Her  laws  are  a  sequence  of  events 
and  activities;  this  sequence  has  worked  itself  out 
through  countless  ages.  Nothing  in  the  universe 
was  designed  in  the  human  sense:  it  was  not  first 
a  thought  in  some  one's  mind,  then  to  become  an 
act  or  a  contrivance.  This  concept  does  not  ex- 
press the  mystery  of  creation.  There  is  a  constant 
becoming;  there  was  no  beginning,  there  can  be 
no  ending.  There  is  perpetual  change  and  revolu- 
tion, perpetual  transfer  and  promotion,  but  noth- 
ing that  can  be  explained  in  terms  of  our  human 
experience  and  achievement.  The  world  and  all  it 
holds  were  created  as  the  flower  is  created  in  the 
spring,  as  the  snowflake  is  created  in  the  winter,  as 
the  cloud  is  created  in  the  summer  sky.  Man  was 
created  as  the  chick  is  created  in  the  egg.  Man  has 
had  a  long  day  of  creation;  he  has  been  becoming 
man  since  the  first  dawn  of  life  in  the  old  Palaeozoic 
seas.  His  horse  and  his  dog  have  been  becoming 
what  we  behold  them  through  all  the  geologic 
79 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

ages.  This  view  does  not  leave  the  Eternal  out  of 
the  universe;  it  puts  Him  in  it  so  that  He  cannot  be 
got  out.  It  makes  Him  immanent  in  it  at  all  points; 
it  makes  Nature  transcend  human  reason  and  human 
speech.  As  long  as  we  think  of  God  as  a  kind  of 
superman  external  to  nature,  we  can  deny  Him  and 
cut  Him  out,  but  when  we  identify  ourselves  and  all 
things  else  with  Him,  there  is  no  escaping  Him.  We 
ourselves  are  a  phase  or  a  fraction  of  Him.  When 
we  select  or  screen  out  what  we  name  the  good,  the 
fair,  the  divine,  and  caU  that  God,  what  are  we  to  do 
with  the  residue.?  Call  it  the  Devil?  The  Devil,  too, 
then  is  a  part  of  the  Eternal  Good.  I  want  no  emas- 
culated universe.  I  want  the  fiber  and  virility  and 
pungency  and  power  and  heat  and  drive  which  all 
that  we  call  bad  gives  it. 

Our  mission  is  to  tame  and  elevate  and  direct  the 
elements  and  forces  without  weakening  them. 
Thence  comes  our  power.  A  perfect  world  would 
not  be  one  without  sin  or  suffering  or  struggle  or 
failure.  There  can  be  no  perfect  world.  But  there 
can  be  one  more  and  more  hvable,  more  and  more 
in  harmony  with  those  laws  that  promote  our  well- 
being.  Approximations,  approximations  —  that  is 
our  success,  and  never  complete  fulfillment!  When 
we  say  that  God  is  the  All,  we  must  have  the  cour- 
age of  our  convictions  and  not  flinch  at  the  con- 
sequences. He  is  all  that  we  call  bad  as  well  as  all 
that  we  call  good.  What  we  call  good  is  our  good, 
80 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

and  not  absolute  good.  There  is  no  absolute  good 
any  more  than  there  is  absolute  heat  or  cold  or 
height  or  depth. 

We  work  our  way  through  the  mazes  and  contra- 
dictions of  things  —  contradictions  from  our  point 
of  view  —  as  best  we  can,  eliminating  the  bad  and 
cleaving  unto  the  good,  but  the  total  scheme  of 
things,  the  reconciliations  and  compensations  and 
final  results,  we  can  never  grasp.  We  cannot  abate 
our  war  upon  evil,  because  we  have  our  well-being 
on  these  terms,  but  evil  is  indirectly  the  father  of 
good. 

V 

All  religious  and  ethical  systems  grow  out  of  our 
egoism.  We  plant  ourselves  in  the  middle  of  the 
universe  and  say  it  is  all  for  us.  We  make  gods  in 
our  own  image,  we  invent  a  heaven  for  the  good  and 
a  hell  for  the  wicked,  and  seek  to  keep  down  the 
brute  within  us  by  a  system  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments. We  improve  our  minds  and  souls  as  we  im- 
prove the  fields;  we  make  them  more  fair  and  fertile, 
but  we  do  not  eliminate  Nature;  with  her  own 
weapons  we  improve  our  relations  to  her  —  we  pro- 
mote our  good,  but  we  are  still  Nature's;  the  harvest 
we  reap  is  still  Nature's.  Our  improvements  upon 
her  are  mere  removal  of  obstructions  from  the  rill 
that  gushes  perennially  from  her  prolific  earth.  We 
improve  her  fruits,  her  flowers,  her  animals  —  that 
81 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

is,  make  them  more  serviceable  to  us  —  by  means 
of  the  hold  we  have  upon  her  methods.  We  add 
nothing;  we  utilize  what  she  has  placed  within  our 
reach.  All  of  which  means  that  we  are  Nature's, 
and  that  our  knowing  it  and  thinking  of  it  cannot 
make  the  slightest  difference.  Our  fate  is  inevitable. 
There  is  no  escape.  Whose  else  could  we  be?  We 
cannot  get  off  the  sphere;  if  we  could,  we  should 
still  be  a  part  of  the  All.  Our  elaborate  schemes  to 
appropriate  or  propitiate  the  Eternal,  to  stand  well 
with  Him,  to  gain  heaven  and  avoid  hell,  are  de- 
vices of  cunning  Nature  to  spur  us  on  the  road  of 
development.  (How  easily  one  falls  into  the  lan- 
guage of  extreme  anthropomorphism!)  The  beau- 
tiful myth  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  and  the  fall  of 
man  is  full  of  meaning.  Surely  it  was  a  good  devil 
that  put  man  in  the  way  of  knowing  good  from  evil, 
and  led  to  his  expulsion  from  a  state  of  innocent 
impotence. 

Nature's  dealings  with  man  and  with  the  other 
forms  of  life  are  on  the  same  plan  as  her  dealings 
with  the  earth  as  a  whole.  The  drainage  system  of 
the  globe  is  by  no  means  perfect;  there  are  marshes 
and  stagnant  waters  in  every  country,  but  how  small 
comparatively  the  area  they  cover!  The  rains  and 
snows  give  birth  to  pure  springs  in  all  lands,  which 
unite  to  form  the  creeks,  which,  again,  unite  to  form 
the  rivers,  which  flow  into  the  lakes  and  seas,  giving 
back  to  the  great  bodies  of  water  what  the  sun  and 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

the  winds  took  from  them,  and  thus  keeping  the 
vital  currents  of  the  globe  in  ceaseless  motion.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  weather  system  of  the 
globe ;  it  is  not  perfect  everywhere  —  too  much 
rain  here,  too  much  sun  there,  too  hot  in  some  parts, 
too  cold  in  others,  but  on  the  whole  favoring  life  and 
development. 

We  think  we  could  improve  the  weather.  So  we 
might  for  our  special  purposes  at  times  —  when  it 
rains  and  we  have  haj^^  down,  or  a  crop  to  put  in,  or 
a  picnic  in  view;  but  it  is  better  on  the  whole  that 
we  adapt  ourselves  to  the  weather  than  that  the 
weather  be  adapted  to  the  special  needs  of  each  of 
us.  The  Lord  would  be  pretty  sure  to  get  mixed  up 
if  He  tried  the  latter  plan. 

A  general  and  not  a  special  Providence  is  our  sal- 
vation. Good  and  evil  mixed  make  life,  as  cloud  and 
sun  in  due  proportions  make  the  best  climate. 

n 
War  is  a  scourge  like  fire,  the  whirlwind,  the 
earthquake,  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  a  particular 
time  and  people,  but  good  may  come  from  it  after 
the  lapse  of  ages.  It  strengthens  and  consolidates 
and  develops  the  heroic  virtues.  Yet  what  a  legacy 
of  suffering  and  death  go  with  it!  But  to  mvoke 
war  is  like  invoking  the  pestilence,  the  tornado,  the 
earthquake.  The  guilt  of  the  German  military  staff 
in  bringing  on  the  World  War  is  of  the  blackest  dye. 

83 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

It  may  be  a  good  to  man,  but  it  is  a  terrible  evil  to 
men.  We  cannot  afford  to  play  Providence;  we  must 
not  play  with  Jove's  thunderbolts.  War  cannot  come 
to  any  people  unless  somebody  (or  some  body  of 
men)  wills  it,  and  to  will  an  aggressive  war  is  a 
crime.  No  matter  if  the  recent  war  puts  a  final  end 
to  war,  the  gods  will  not  credit  us  with  the  good  that 
flows  from  our  act  over  and  above  our  purpose  and 
will. 

All  the  good  that  comes  from  war  comes  from 
struggle,  self-denial,  heroism ;  and  all  courses  of 
action  that  develop  these  traits  are  substitutes  for 
war.  The  farm,  the  mining-camp,  engineering,  ex- 
ploration, are  substitutes.  The  best  war  material  is 
recruited  from  these  fields.  The  man  who  can  guide 
the  plowshare  can  wield  the  sword;  the  man  who 
can  face  the  grizzly  and  the  lion  can  face  the  cannon 
and  the  torpedo.  War  develops  no  new  virtues ;  it 
helps  rejuvenate  the  old;  obedience,  team-work, 
system,  organization  and  so  on  are  achievements 
of  an  industrial  age.  In  history  most  wrongs  are 
finally  righted  and  the  balance  is  fairly  kept,  but 
this  is  not  by  the  will  and  purpose  of  the  actors,  but 
by  the  remedial  forces  of  nature  and  life. 

The  guilt  falls  the  same  upon  the  greed  and  lust 
of  power,  even  if  the  gods  finally  reap  a  harvest  that 
man's  iniquities  have  sown.  He  maketh  the  wicked 
to  praise  Him,  but  the  wicked  are  to  get  no  credit. 
Here  is  where  our  moral  standards  diverge  from 
84 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

those  of  the  natural  universal.  Our  moral  standards 
apply  to  us  alone;  they  are  special  and  limited.  The 
gods  know  them  not.  The  rain  falls  alike  upon  the 
just  and  upon  the  unjust.  The  poet  says,  "  I 
judge  not  as  the  judge  judges,  but  as  the  sunlight 
falling  around  a  helpless  thing."  This  is  the  voice 
of  the  natural  universal.  When  we  judge  as  the 
judge  judges,  we  condemn  strife  and  war  and  all 
such  uncharity,  we  execute  or  imprison  criminals,  we 
found  asylums  and  hospitals  and  other  charitable 
organizations;  when  we  judge  as  Nature  or  the  poet 
judges,  we  say  to  the  fallen  one: 

"Not  till  the  sun  excludes  you  do  I  exclude  you. 

Not  till  the  waters  refuse  to  glisten  for  you  and  the  leaves  to 

rustle  for  you,  do  my  words  refuse  to  glisten  and  rustle 

for  you." 

The  All  brings  mercy  out  of  cruelty,  love  out  of 
hatred,  life  out  of  death,  but  man's  orbit  is  so  small 
that  he  cannot  harmonize  these  contradictions.  The 
curve  of  the  universal  laws  does  not  bring  him 
round  till  generations  have  passed.  To  keep  on 
traveling  east  till  you  approach  your  point  of  de- 
parture from  the  west,  you  must  have  the  round 
globe  to  travel  on.  An  empire  would  not  avail. 

VII 

Good  and  evil  are  strangely  mixed  in  this  world, 

and  probably  in  all  other  worlds.  What  is  evil  to 

one  creature  is  often  good  to  another.  It  is  an  evil 

85 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

to  the  vireo  or  to  the  warbler  when  the  cowbird  lays 
its  egg  in  the  nest  of  one  of  these  birds,  but  it  is  a 
good  to  the  cowbird.  It  relieves  her  of  all  maternal 
cares,  and  provides  her  young  with  a  devoted 
nurse  and  stepmother,  but  the  young  warblers  or 
vireos  are  hkely  to  perish.  All  parasites  live  at  the 
expense  of  some  other  form  of  life,  and  are  to  that 
extent  evils  to  thesp  forms ;  but  Nature  is  just  as 
much  interested  in  one  form  as  in  the  other;  an  ill 
wind  to  one  blows  good  to  another,  and  thus  the 
balance  is  kept. 

A  world  without  evil  would  be  an  impossible 
world  —  as  impossible  as  mechanical  motion  with- 
out friction  or  as  sunlight  without  shadow.  The  two 
worlds,  the  organic  and  the  inorganic,  constantly 
interact.  The  former  draws  all  its  elements  and  its 
power  from  the  latter,  which  is  passive  to  it,  and 
goes  its  way  in  the  inexorable  round  of  physical 
laws,  irrespective  of  it.  Viewed  as  a  whole,  the  evils 
of  life  inhere  in  its  elements  and  conditions.  Air, 
water,  fire,  soil,  give  us  our  strength  and  our  growth ; 
they  also  destroy  us  if  we  fail  to  keep  right  rela- 
tions to  them.  We  cannot  walk  or  hft  a  hand 
without  gravity;  and  yet,  give  gravity  a  chance, 
and  it  crushes  us,  the  floods  drown  us,  fire  consumes 
us!  Could  we  have  life  on  any  other  terms;  could 
God  himself  annul  these  conditions? 

Hunger  is  or  may  become  an  evil  destroying  life, 
but  does  it  not  imply  the  opposite  condition  of  good 
86 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

•—food,  an  appetite,  power  of  assimilation  in  the 
jrganism?  Disease  is  an  evil  to  the  hving  body  it 
attacks,  but  it  does  not  attack  a  dead  body  and  it 
often  educates  the  body  to  resist  disease.  It  is  a 
war  which  may  leave  the  victor  more  capable  than 
he  was  before. 

Robert  Ingersoll  conceived  of  an  improvement 
in  creation  —  "make  health  contagious  instead  of 
disease."  But  this  is  to  trifle  with  words.  In  a  cer- 
tain sense  health  is  contagious.  But  physical  health, 
like  peace  of  mind,  is  a  condition,  and  must  come 
from  harmony  within,  while  a  contagious  disease  is 
conveyed  by  a  living  micro-organism,  and  is  truly 
catching,  and  to  change  or  reverse  all  this  would  be 
to  destroy  the  conditions  of  life  itself.  To  postulate 
a  world  in  which  two  and  two  would  make  five,  or  in 
which  a  straight  line  is  not  the  shortest  distance  be- 
tween two  points,  is  to  take  the  road  to  the  insane 
asylum.  Evil  is  positive  only  in  the  sense  that 
shadow  or  darkness  is  positive,  or  that  cold  is 
positive.  It  is  a  greater  or  lesser  degree  of  negation. 

In  society  and  in  the  state  we  seek  to  curb  or  to 
correct  or  to  eliminate  Nature's  errors,  and  in  doing 
so  often  fall  into  other  errors  and  cross-purposes. 
Yet  to  fight  what  we  call  evil,  and  promote  what  we 
call  good,  is  the  supreme  duty  of  all  men.  Physical 
evil  the  doctors  and  natural  philosophers  warn  us 
against;  moral  evil,  which  is  a  much  more  intangible 
thing,  our  ethical  teachers  point  out  to  us;  mental 
87 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

evil,  ignorance,  superstition,  false  judgment,  and  so 
on,  the  schools  and  colleges  help  us  to  avoid;  re- 
ligious evil,  economic  evil,  political  evil,  all  have 
their  safeguards  and  guides. 

Why  could  not  a  world  have  been  made  in  which 
there  was  no  evil?  In  asking  such  a  question  we 
misapprehend  the  nature  of  the  world;  we  are  think- 
ing of  something  made  and  a  maker  external  to  it; 
we  are  trying  the  universe  by  the  standards  of  our 
human  experience.  The  world  was  not  made,  man 
was  not  created  in  any  sense  paralleled  by  our  hu- 
man experience  with  tangible  bodies.  The  world  and 
all  there  is  in  it  is  the  result  of  evolution,  or  an  end- 
less process  of  creation,  an  everlasting  becoming,  in 
which  the  nature  of  things  beyond  which  we  can 
take  no  step  plays  the  principal  part.  A  world  on 
any  other  terms  would  not  be  the  world  to  which  we 
are  adjusted,  and  out  of  whose  conflicting  forces  our 
lives  came. 

There  will  be  times  when  the  light  will  blind  the 
eye;  other  times  when  the  darkness  will  heal  and 
restore  it;  when  the  heat  will  bum  the  hand,  when 
the  food  will  poison  the  stomach,  when  the  friend 
will  weary  you,  when  home  is  a  prison,  when  books 
are  a  bore.  Our  relations  to  things  make  them  good 
or  bad:  our  momentary  and  accidental  relations 
may  make  the  good  things  bad,  but  our  permanent 
natural  relations  make  the  good  good,  the  bad  bad. 

In  a  world  without  the  gravity  which  so  often 
88 


THE  GOOD  DEVILS 

crushes  us,  we  could  not  walk  or  lift  the  hand; 
without  the  friction  which  so  often  impedes  us,  our 
train  and  vehicles  would  not  move;  without  the 
water  that  could  so  easily  drown  us,  the  currents  of 
our  bodies  would  dry  up;  without  the  germs  that  so 
often  make  war  upon  us,  we  should  soon  cease  to  be. 
Both  friendly  and  hostile  are  the  powers  that  sur- 
round us,  —  or,  rather,  is  the  power  that  surrounds 
us,  for  it  is  one  and  not  two,  —  friendly  when  we  are 
in  the  relation  to  it  demanded  and  provided  for  by 
our  constitution,  and  unfriendly  when  we  are  in 
false  relation  to  it.  To  know  this  true  relation  from 
the  false  is  a  part  of  the  discipline  of  life. 

I  know  this  is  not  the  end  of  the  story;  there  are 
more  questions  to  be  asked.  We  want  a  solution  of 
the  last  solution,  but  this  can  never  come.  Final 
questions  return  forever  to  themselves;  they  baffle 
us,  constituted  as  our  minds  are;  they  are  circles 
and  not  lines. 


VI 

THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

I 

WHAT  unthinking  people  call  design  in  nature 
is  simply  the  reflection  of  our  inevitable  an- 
thropomorphism. Whatever  they  can  use,  they 
think  was  designed  for  that  purpose  —  the  air  to 
breathe,  the  water  to  drink,  the  soil  to  plant.  It  is  as 
if  they  thought  the  notch  in  the  mountains  was 
made  for  the  road  to  pass  over,  or  the  bays  and  har- 
bor for  the  use  of  cities  and  shipping.  But  in  inor- 
ganic nature  the  foot  is  made  to  fit  the  shoe  and  not 
the  reverse.  We  are  cast  in  the  mould  of  the  environ- 
ment. If  the  black  cap  of  the  nuthatch  which  comes 
to  the  maple-tree  in  front  of  my  window  and  feeds 
on  the  suet  I  place  there  were  a  human  thinking- 
cap,  the  bird  would  see  design  in  the  regular  re- 
newal of  that  bit  of  suet;  he  would  say,  "Some  one 
or  something  puts  that  there  for  me";  but  he  helps 
himself  and  asks  no  questions.  The  mystery  does 
not  trouble  him.  WTiy  should  not  I,  poor  mortal, 
feel  the  same  about  these  blessings  and  conveniences 
around  me  of  which  I  hourly  partake,  and  which 
seem  so  providential?  Why  do  not  I,  with  my  think- 
ing-cap, infer  that  some  one  or  something  is  think- 
ing about  me  and  my  well-being?  The  mass  of  man- 
90 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

kind  does  draw  this  inference,  and  it  is  well  for 
them  to  do  so.  But  the  case  of  the  bird  is  different. 
The  bit  of  suet  that  I  feed  on  is  not  so  conspicuously 
something  extra,  something  added  to  the  tree;  it 
is  a  part  of  the  tree;  it  is  inseparable  from  it.  I  am 
compelled,  as  it  were,  to  distil  it  out  of  the  tree,  so 
that  instead  of  being  the  act  of  a  special  providence, 
it  is  the  inevitable  benefaction  of  the  general  provi- 
dence of  nature.  What  the  old  maple  holds  for  me  is 
maple-sugar,  but  it  was  not  put  there  for  me;  it  is 
there  just  the  same,  whether  I  want  it  or  not;  it  is  a 
part  of  the  economy  of  the  tree;  it  is  a  factor  in  its 
own  growth;  the  tree  is  not  thinking  of  me  (pardon 
the  term),  but  of  itself.  Of  course  this  does  not  make 
my  debt  to  it,  and  my  grounds  for  thankfulness,  any 
the  less  real,  but  it  takes  it  out  of  the  category  of 
events  such  as  that  which  brings  the  suet  to  the  nut- 
hatch. The  Natural  Providence  is  not  intermittent, 
it  is  perennial;  but  it  takes  no  thought  of  me  or  you. 
It  is  life  that  is  flexible  and  adaptive,  and  not  matter 
and  force.  "We  do  not,"  says  Renan,  "remark  in 
the  universe  any  sign  of  deliberate  and  thoughtful 
action.  We  may  aflSrm  that  no  action  of  this  sort  has 
existed  for  milUons  of  centuries."  I  think  we  may 
affirm  more  than  that  —  we  may  affirm  that  it 
never  existed.  Some  vestige  of  the  old  theology  still 
clung  to  Renan 's  mind  —  there  was  a  day  of  crea- 
tion in  which  God  set  the  universe  going,  and  then 
left  it  to  run  itself;  the  same  vestige  clung  to  Dar- 
91 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

win*s  mind  and  led  him  to  say  that  in  the  beginning 
God  must  have  created  a  few  species  of  animals  and 
vegetables  and  then  left  them  to  develop  and  popu- 
late the  world. 

Says  Renan,  "When  a  chemist  arranges  an  ex- 
periment that  is  to  last  for  years,  everything  which 
takes  place  in  his  retort  is  regulated  by  the  laws  of 
absolute  unconsciousness;  which  does  not  mean  that 
a  will  has  not  intervened  at  the  beginning  of  the  ex- 
periment, and  that  it  will  not  intervene  at  the  end." 
There  was  no  beginning  nor  will  there  be  any  ending 
to  the  experiment  of  creation;  the  ■will  is  as  truly 
there  in  the  behavior  of  the  molecules  at  one  time  as 
at  another.  The  effect  of  Renan's  priestly  training 
and  associations  clings  to  him  like  a  birthmark. 

In  discussing  these  questions  our  plumb-line  does 
not  touch  bottom,  because  there  is  no  bottom.  "In 
the  infinite,"  says  Renan  with  deeper  insight,  "ne- 
gations vanish,  contradictions  are  merged";  in 
other  words,  opposites  are  true.  Where  I  stand  on 
the  surface  of  the  sphere  is  the  center  of  that  sur- 
face, but  that  does  not  prevent  the  point  where  you 
stand  being  the  center  also.  Every  point  is  a  center, 
and  the  sky  is  overhead  at  one  place  as  at  another; 
opposites  are  true. 

The  moral  and  intellectual  worlds  present  the 
same  contradictions  or  limitations  —  the  same 
relatively  of  what  we  call  truth. 

Nature's  ways  —  which  with  me  is  the  same  as  say- 
92 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

ing  God's  ways  —  are  so  different  from  ours;  "no  de- 
liberate and  thoughtful  action,"  as  Renan  puts  it, 
no  economy  of  time  or  material,  no  short  cuts,  no 
cutting-out  of  non-essentials,  no  definite  plan,  no 
specific  ends,  few  straight  lines  or  right  angles;  her 
streams  loiter  and  curve,  her  forces  are  unbridled; 
no  loss  or  gain;  her  accounts  always  balance;  the 
loss  at  one  point,  or  with  one  form,  is  a  gain  with 
some  other  —  all  of  which  is  the  same  as  saying  that 
there  is  nothing  artificial  in  Nature.  All  is  Natural,  all 
is  subject  to  the  hit-and-miss  method.  The  way  Na- 
ture trims  her  trees,  plants  her  forests,  sows  her  gar- 
dens, is  typical  of  the  whole  process  of  the  cosmos. 
God  is  no  better  than  man  because  man  is  a  part  of 
God.  From  our  human  point  of  view  he  is  guilty 
of  our  excesses  and  shortcomings.  Time  does  not 
count,  pain  does  not  count,  waste  does  not  count. 
The  wonder  is  that  the  forests  all  get  planted  by 
this  method,  the  pines  in  their  places,  the  spruces  in 
theirs,  the  oaks  and  maples  in  theirs;  and  the  trees 
get  trimmed  in  due  time,  now  and  then,  it  is  true,  by 
a  very  wasteful  method.  A  tree  doctor  could  save 
and  prolong  the  lives  of  many  of  them.  The  small 
fountains  and  streams  all  find  their  way  to  larger 
streams,  and  these  to  still  larger,  and  these  to  lakes 
or  to  the  sea,  and  the  drainage  system  of  the  con- 
tinents works  itself  out  with  engineering  exacti- 
tude. The  decay  of  the  rocks  and  the  formation  of 
the  soil  come  about  in  due  time,  but  not  m  man's 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

time.  In  all  the  grand  processes  and  transforma- 
tions of  nature  the  element  of  time  enters  on  such 
a  scale  as  to  dwarf  all  human  efforts. 

II 

When  we  say  of  a  thing  or  an  event  that  it  was  a 
chance  happening,  we  do  not  mean  that  it  was  not 
determined  by  the  laws  of  matter  and  force,  but  we 
mean  it  was  not  the  result  of  the  human  will,  or  of 
anything  hke  it;  it  was  not  planned  or  designed  by 
conscious  intelligence.  Chance  in  this  sense  plays  a 
very  large  part  in  nature  and  in  life.  Though  the  re- 
sult of  irrefragable  laws,  the  whole  non-living  world 
about  us  shows  no  purpose  or  forethought  in  our 
human  sense.  For  instance,  we  are  compelled  to 
regard  the  main  features  of  the  earth  as  matters 
of  chance,  the  distribution  of  land  and  water,  of 
islands  and  continents,  of  rivers,  lakes,  seas,  moun- 
tains and  plains,  valleys  and  hills,  the  shapes  of  the 
continents;  that  there  is  more  land  in  the  northern 
hemisphere  than  in  the  southern,  more  land  at  the 
South  Pole  than  at  the  North,  is  a  matter  of  chance. 
The  serpentine  course  of  a  stream  through  an  allu- 
vial plain,  a  stream  two  yards  wide,  winding  and 
ox-bowing  precisely  as  does  the  Mississippi,  is  a 
matter  of  chance.  The  whole  geography  of  a  coun- 
try, in  fact,  is  purely  a  matter  of  chance,  and  not 
the  result  of  anything  like  human  forethought.  The 
planets  themselves  —  that  Jupiter  is  large  and 
94 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

Mercury  small;  that  Saturn  has  rings;  that  Jupiter 
has  seven  moons;  that  the  Earth  has  one;  that  other 
planets  have  none;  that  some  of  the  planets  are  in  a 
condition  to  sustain  life  as  we  know  it,  for  example, 
Venus,  Earth,  and  probably  Mars;  that  some  re- 
volve in  more  elliptical  orbits  than  others;  that 
Mercury  and  Venus  apparently  always  keep  the 
same  side  toward  the  sun  —  all  these  things  are  mat- 
ters of  chance.  It  is  easy  to  say,  as  did  our  fathers, 
that  God  designed  it  thus  and  so,  but  how  are  we 
to  think  of  an  omnipotent  and  omniscient  Being 
as  planning  such  wholesale  destruction  of  his  own 
works  as  occurs  in  the  cosmic  catastrophes  which 
the  astronomers  now  and  then  witness  in  the  side- 
real universe,  or  even  as  occur  on  the  earth,  when 
earthquakes  and  volcanoes  devastate  fair  lands  or 
engulf  the  islands  of  the  sea?  Why  should  such  a 
Being  design  a  desert,  or  invent  a  tornado,  or  ordain 
that  some  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  should  have 
almost  perpetual  rain  and  another  portion  almost 
perpetual  drought?  In  Hawaii  I  saw  islands  that 
were  green  and  fertile  on  one  end  from  daily  show- 
ers, while  the  other  end,  ten  miles  away,  was  a 
rough  barren  rock,  from  the  entire  absence  of 
showers.  Were  the  trade  winds  designed  to  bring 
the  vapors  of  the  sea  to  the  tropic  lands? 

In  following  this  line  of  thought  we,  of  course, 
soon  get  where  no  step  can  be  taken.  Is  the  universe 
itself  a  chance  happening?  Such  a  proposition  is  un- 
95 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

thinkable,  because  something  out  of  nothing  is  un- 
thinkable. Our  experience  in  this  world  develops  our 
conceptions  of  time  and  space,  and  to  set  bounds  to 
either  is  an  impossible  task.  We  say  the  cosmos 
must  always  have  existed,  and  there  we  stop.  We 
have  no  faculties  to  deal  with  the  great  ultimate 
problems. 

We  are  no  better  off  when  we  turn  to  the  world  of 
living  things.  Here  we  see  design,  particular  means 
adapted  to  specific  ends.  Shall  we  say  that  a  bird  or 
a  bee  or  a  flower  is  a  chance  happening,  as  is  the 
rainbow  or  the  sunset  cloud  or  a  pearl  or  a  precious 
stone?  Is  man  himself  a  chance  happening?  Here  we 
are  stuck  and  cannot  lift  our  feet.  The  mystery  and 
the  miracle  of  vitality,  as  Tyndall  called  it,  is  before 
us.  Here  is  the  long,  hard  road  of  evolution,  the  push 
and  the  unfolding  of  life  through  countless  ages, 
something  more  than  the  mechanical  and  the  acci- 
dental, though  these  have  played  a  part;  something 
less  than  specific  plan  and  purpose,  though  we  seem 
to  catch  dim  outlines  of  these. 

Spontaneous  variations,  original  adaptations,  a 
never-faihng  primal  push  toward  higher  and  more 
complex  forms  —  how  can  we,  how  shall  we,  read 
the  riddle  of  it  all?  How  shall  we  account  for  man  on 
purely  naturalistic  grounds? 

The  consistent  exponent  of  variation  cannot  go 
into  partnership  with  supematuralism.  Grant  that 
the  organic  split  off  from  the  inorganic  by  insensible 
96 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

degrees,  yet  we  are  bound  to  ask  what  made  it  split 
off  at  all?  —  and  how  it  was  that  the  first  unicellu- 
lar life  contained  the  promise  and  the  potency  of  all 
the  life  of  to-day?  Such  questions  take  us  into  deep 
waters  where  our  plummet-hne  finds  no  bottom.  It 
suits  my  reason  better  to  say  there  is  no  solution 
than  to  accept  a  solution  which  itself  needs  solution, 
and  still  leaves  us  where  we  began. 

The  adjustment  of  non-living  bodies  to  each 
other  seems  a  simple  matter,  but  in  considering  the 
adaptations  of  living  bodies  to  one  another,  and  to 
their  environment,  we  are  confronted  with  a  much 
harder  problem.  Life  is  an  active  principle,  not  in 
the  sense  that  gravity  and  chemical  reactions  are 
active  principles,  but  in  a  quite  different  sense. 
Gravity  and  chemical  reactions  are  always  the 
same,  inflexible  and  uncompromising;  but  life  is 
ever  variable  and  adaptive;  it  will  take  half  a  loaf  if 
it  cannot  get  a  whole  one.  Gravity  answers  yea  and 
nay.  Life  says,  "Probably;  we  will  see  about  it;  we 
will  try  again  to-morrow."  The  oak-leaf  will  become 
an  oak-ball  to  accommodate  an  insect  that  wants  a 
cradle  and  a  nursery  for  its  young;  it  will  develop 
one  kind  of  a  nursery  for  one  insect  and  another 
kind  for  a  different  insect. 

Ill 
As  far  as  I  have  got,  or  ever  hope  to  get,  toward 
solving  the  problem  of  the  universe  is  to  see  clearly 

97 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

that  it  is  insoluble.  One  can  arrive  only  at  negative 
conclusions;  lie  comes  to  see  that  the  problem  can- 
not be  dealt  with  in  terms  of  our  human  experi- 
ence and  knowledge.  But  what  other  terms  have 
we  ?  Our  knowledge  does  not  qualify  us  in  any  de- 
gree to  deal  with  the  Infinite.  The  sphere  has  no 
handle  to  take  hold  of,  and  the  Infinite  baffles  the 
mind  in  the  same  way.  Measured  by  our  human 
standards,  it  is  a  series  of  contradictions.  The 
method  of  Nature  is  a  haphazard  method,  yet  be- 
hold the  final  order  and  completeness!  How  many 
of  her  seeds  she  trusts  to  the  winds  and  the  waters, 
and  her  fertilizing  pollens  and  germs  also!  And  the 
winds  and  the  waters  do  her  errands,  with  many 
failures,  of  course,  but  they  hit  the  mark  often 
enough  to  serve  her  purpose.  She  provides  lavishly 
enough  to  afford  her  failures. 

When  we  venture  upon  the  winds  and  the  waters 
with  our  crafts,  we  aim  to  control  them,  and  we 
reach  our  havens  only  when  we  do  control  them. 

What  is  there  in  the  method  of  Nature  that  an- 
swers to  the  human  will  in  such  matters?  Nothing 
that  I  can  see;  yet  her  boats  and  her  balloons  reach 
their  havens  —  not  all  of  them,  but  enough  of  them 
for  her  purpose.  Yet  when  we  apply  the  word  "pur- 
pose" or  "design"  to  Nature,  to  the  Infinite,  we 
are  describing  her  in  terms  of  the  finite,  and  thus  fall 
into  contradictions.  Still,  the  wings  and  balloons 
and  hooks  and  springs  in  the  vegetable  world  are  for 
98 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

a  specific  purpose  —  to  scatter  the  seed  far  from  the 
parent  plant.  Every  part  and  organ  and  movement 
of  a  living  body  serves  a  purpose  to  that  organ- 
ism. The  mountain  lily  looks  straight  up  to  the 
sky;  the  meadow  lily  looks  down  to  the  earth;  un- 
doubtedly each  flower  finds  its  advantage  in  its  own 
attitude,  but  what  that  advantage  is,  I  know  not. 
If  Nature  planned  and  invented  as  man  does,  she 
would  attain  to  mere  unity  and  simplicity.  It  is  her 
blind,  prodigal,  haphazard  methods  that  result  in 
her  endless  diversity.  When  she  got  a  good  wing  for 
the  seed  of  a  tree,  such  as  that  of  the  maple,  she 
would,  if  merely  efficient,  give  this  to  the  seeds  of 
other  similar  trees;  but  she  gives  a  different  wing 
to  the  ash,  to  the  linden,  to  the  elm,  the  pine,  and 
the  hemlock,  while  to  some  she  gives  no  wings  at 
all.   The  nut-bearing  trees,  such  as  the  oaks,  the 
beeches,  the  walnuts,  and  the  hickories,  have  no 
wings,  except  such  as  are  afforded  them  by  the 
birds  and  beasts  that  feed  upon  them  and  carry 
them  away.  And  here  again  Nature  has  a  pur- 
pose in  the  edible  nut  which  tempts  some  creatures 
to  carry  it  away.  If  all  the  nuts  were  devoured, 
the  whole  tribe  of  nut-bearing  trees  would  in  time 
be  exterminated,  and  Nature's  end  defeated.  But 
in  a  world  of  conflicting  forces  like  ours,  chance 
plays  an  important  part;  many  of  the  nuts  get 
scattered,  and  not  all  devoured.  The  hoarding-up 
propensities  of  certain  birds  and  squirrels  result 
99 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

in  the  planting  of  many  oaks  and  chestnuts  and 
beeches. 

The  inherent  tendency  to  variation  in  organic 
life,  together  with  Nature's  hit-and-miss  method, 
account  for  her  endless  variety  on  the  same  plane, 
as  it  were,  as  that  of  her  many  devices  for  dissemi- 
nating her  seeds.  One  plan  of  hook  or  barb  serves  as 
well  as  another,  —  that  of  bidens  as  well  as  that  of 
hound's- tongue, — yet  each  has  a  pattern  of  its 
own.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  leaves  of  the 
trees  :  their  function  is  to  expose  the  juices  of  the 
tree  to  the  chemical  action  of  light  and  air;  yet 
behold  what  an  endless  variety  in  their  shape, 
size,  and  structure!  This  is  the  way  of  the  Infi- 
nite —  to  multiply  endlessly,  to  give  a  free  rein  to 
the  physical  forces  and  let  them  struggle  with  one 
another  for  the  stable  equilibrium  to  which  they 
never,  as  a  whole,  attain;  to  give  the  same  free  rein 
to  the  organic  forces  and  let  their  various  forms 
struggle  with  one  another  for  the  unstable  equilib- 
rium which  is  the  secret  of  their  life. 

The  many  contingencies  that  wait  upon  the  cir- 
cuit of  the  physical  forces  and  determine  the  various 
forms  of  organic  matter  —  rocks,  sand,  soil,  gravel, 
mountain,  plain  —  all  shifting  and  changing  end- 
lessly —  wait  upon  the  circuit  of  the  organic  forces 
and  turn  the  life  impulse  into  myriad  channels,  and 
people  the  earth  with  myriads  of  living  forms,  each 
accidental  from  our  limited  point  of  view,  while  all 
100 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

are  determined  by  irrefragable  laws.  The  contra- 
dictions in  such  statements  are  obvious  and  are  in- 
evitable when  the  finite  tries  to  measure  or  describe 
the  ways  of  the  Infinite. 

The  waters  of  the  globe  are  forever  seeking  the 
repose  of  a  dead  level,  but  when  they  attain  it,  if 
they  ever  do,  the  world  will  be  dead.  Behold  what  a 
career  they  have  in  their  circuit  from  the  sea  to  the 
clouds  and  back  to  the  earth  in  the  ministering 
rains,  and  then  to  the  sea  again  through  the  streams 
and  rivers!  The  mantling  snow  with  its  exquisite 
crystals,  the  grinding  and  transporting  glaciers,  the 
placid  or  plowing  and  turbulent  rivers,  the  spark- 
ling and  refreshing  streams,  the  cooling  and  renew- 
ing dews,  the  softening  and  protecting  vapors,  wait 
upon  this  circuit  of  the  waters  throu^  the  agency 
of  the  sun,  from  the  sea,  through  the  sky  and  land, 
back  to  the  sea  again.  Yes,  and  all  the  myriad  forms 
of  life  also.  This  circuit  of  the  waters  drives  and  sus- 
tains all  the  vital  machinery  of  the  globe. 

Why  and  how  the  sun  and  the  rain  bring  the 
rose  and  the  violet,  the  peach  and  the  plum,  the 
wheat  and  the  rye,  and  the  boys  and  the  girls,  out 
of  the  same  elements  and  conditions  that  they 
bring  the  thistles  and  the  tares,  the  thorn  and  the 
scrub,  the  fang  and  the  sting,  the  monkey  and  the 
reptile,  is  the  insoluble  mystery. 

If  Nature  aspires  toward  what  we  call  the  good  in 
man,  does  she  not  equally  aspire  toward  what  we 
101 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

call  the  bad  in  thorns  and  weeds  and  reptiles?  May 
we  not  say  that  good  is  our  good,  and  bad  is  our 
bad,  and  that  there  is,  and  can  be,  no  absolute  good 
and  no  absolute  bad,  any  more  than  there  can  be 
an  absolute  up  or  an  absolute  down? 

How  haphazard,  how  fortuitous  and  uncalculated 
is  all  this  business  of  the  multiplication  of  the  hu- 
man race!  What  freaks,  what  failures,  what  mon- 
strosities, what  empty  vessels,  what  deformed 
limbs,  what  defective  brains,  what  perverted  in- 
stincts! It  is  as  if  in  the  counsels  of  the  Eternal  it 
had  been  decided  to  set  going  an  evolutionary  im- 
pulse that  should  inevitably  result  in  man,  and  then 
leave  him  to  fail  or  flourish  just  as  the  ten  thousand 
contingencies  of  the  maelstrom  of  conflicting  earth 
forces  should  decide,  so  that  whether  a  man  be- 
come a  cripple  or  an  athlete,  a  fool  or  a  philoso- 
pher, a  satyr  or  a  god,  is  largely  a  matter  of  chance. 
Yet  the  human  brain  has  steadily  grown  in  size,  hu- 
man mastery  over  nature  has  steadily  increased,  and 
chance  has,  upon  the  whole,  brought  more  good  to 
man  than  evil.  Optimism  is  a  final  trait  of  the  Eter- 
nal. 

And  the  taking-off  of  man,  how  haphazard,  how 
fortuitous  it  all  is !  His  years  shall  be  threescore  and 
ten;  but  how  few,  comparatively,  reach  that  age, 
how  few  live  out  half  their  days!  Disease,  accident, 
stupidity,  superstition,  cut  him  off  at  all  ages  —  in 
mfancy,  in  childhood,  in  youth,  in  manhood ;  his 
102 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

whole  life  is  a  part  of  the  flux  and  uncertainty  of 
things.  No  god  watches  over  him  aside  from  himself 
and  his  kind,  no  atom  or  molecule  is  partial  to  him, 
gravity  crushes  him,  fire  burns  him,  the  floods 
drown  him  as  readily  as  they  do  vipers  and  vermin. 
He  takes  his  chances,  he  gains,  and  he  loses,  but 
Nature  treats  him  with  the  same  impartiality  that 
she  treats  the  rest  of  her  creatures.  He  runs  the  same 
gantlet  of  the  hostile  physical  forces,  he  pays  the 
same  price  for  his  development;  but  his  greater 
capacity  for  development  —  to  whom  or  what  does 
he  owe  that?  If  we  follow  Darwin  we  shall  say  natu- 
ral selection,  and  natural  selection  is  just  as  good  a 
god  as  any  other.  No  matter  what  we  call  it,  if  it 
brought  man  to  the  head  of  creation  and  put  all 
things  (nearly  all)  under  his  feet,  it  is  god  enough 
for  anybody.  At  the  heart  of  it  there  is  stiU  a  mys- 
tery we  cannot  grasp.  The  ways  of  Nature  about  us 
are  no  less  divine  because  they  are  near  and  famil- 
iar. The  illusion  of  the  rare  and  the  remote,  science 
dispels.  Of  course  we  are  still  trying  to  describe  the 
Infinite  in  terms  of  the  finite. 

IV 

We  are  so  attached  to  our  kind,  and  so  dependent 
upon  them,  that  most  persons  feel  homeless  and 
orphaned  in  a  universe  where  no  suggestion  of  sym- 
pathy and  interest  akin  to  our  own  comes  to  us 
from  the  great  void.  A  providence  of  impersonal 
103 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

forces,  the  broadcast,  indiscriminate  benefits  of  na- 
ture, kind  deeds  where  no  thought  of  kindness  is, 
well-being  as  the  result  of  immutable  law — all  such 
ideas  chill  and  disquiet  us,  until  we  have  inured  our- 
selves to  them.  We  love  to  fancy  that  we  see  friendly- 
hands  and  hear  friendly  voices  in  nature.  It  is  easy 
to  make  ourselves  believe  that  the  rains,  the 
warmth,  the  fruitful  seasons,  are  sent  by  some  Be- 
ing for  our  especial  benefit.  The  thought  that  we  are 
adapted  to  nature  and  not  nature  made  or  modified 
to  suit  us,  is  distasteful  to  us.  It  rubs  us  the  wrong 
way.  We  have  long  been  taught  to  believe  that 
there  is  air  because  we  have  lungs,  and  water  be- 
cause we  need  it  to  drink,  and  light  because  we 
need  it  to  see.  Science  takes  this  conceit  out  of  us. 
The  light  begat  the  eye,  and  the  air  begat  the  lungs. 
In  the  universe,  as  science  reveals  it  to  us,  sensi- 
tive souls  experience  the  cosmic  chill;  in  the  uni- 
verse as  our  inevitable  anthropomorphism  shapes  it 
for  us,  we  experience  the  human  glow.  The  same 
anthropomorphism  has  in  the  past  peopled  the 
woods  and  fields  and  streams  and  winds  with  good 
and  evil  spirits,  and  filled  the  world  with  cruel  and 
debasing  superstitions;  but  in  our  day  we  have  got 
rid  of  all  of  this;  we  have  abolished  all  gods  but  one. 
This  one  we  still  fear,  and  bow  down  before,  and 
seek  to  propitiate  —  not  with  offerings  and  sacri- 
fices, but  with  good  Sunday  clothes  and  creeds  and 
pew-rents  and  praise  and  incense  and  surplices  and 
104 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

ceremonies.  ^Vhat  Brocken  shadows  our  intense 
personalism  casts  upon  nature !  We  see  the  gigantic 
outlines  of  our  own  forms,  and  mistake  them  for  a 
veritable  god.  But  as  we  ourselves  are  a  part  of  na- 
ture, so  this  humanizing  tendency  of  ours  is  also  a 
part  of  nature,  a  part  of  human  nature  —  not  vaUd 
and  independent,  like  the  chemical  and  physical 
forces,  but  as  valid  and  real  as  our  dreams,  our 
ideas,  our  aspirations.  All  the  gods  and  divinities 
and  spirits  with  which  man  has  peopled  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  are  a  part  of  Nature  as  she  manifests 
herself  in  our  subjective  selves.  So  there  we  are,  on  a 
trail  that  ends  where  it  began.  We  condemn  one 
phase  of  nature  through  another  phase  of  nature 
that  is  active  in  our  own  minds.  How  shall  we  escape 
this  self-contradiction.''  As  we  check  or  control  the 
gravity  without  us  by  the  power  of  the  gravity  in 
our  own  bodies,  so  our  intelligence  must  sit  in  judg- 
ment on  phases  of  the  same  Universal  Intelligence 
manifested  in  outward  nature. 

It  is  this  recognition  of  an  intelligence  in  nature 
akin  to  our  own  that  gives  rise  to  our  anthropomor- 
phism. We  recognize  in  the  living  world  about  us 
the  use  of  specific  means  to  specific  ends,  and  this 
we  call  intelligence.  It  differs  from  our  own  in  that 
it  is  not  selective  and  intensive  in  the  same  way.  It 
does  not  take  short  cuts;  it  does  not  aim  at  human 
efficiency;  it  does  not  cut  out  waste  and  delay  and 
pain.  It  is  the  method  of  trial  and  error.  It  hits  its 
105 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

mark  because  it  hits  all  marks.  Species  succeed  be- 
cause the  tide  that  bears  them  on  is  a  universal  tide. 
It  is  not  a  river,  but  an  ocean  current.  Nature  pro- 
gresses, but  not  as  man  does  by  discarding  one  form 
and  adapting  a  higher.  She  discards  nothing;  she 
keeps  all  her  old  forms  and  ways  and  out  of  them 
evolves  the  higher;  she  keeps  the  fish's  fin,  while  she 
perfects  the  bird's  wing;  she  preserves  the  inver- 
tebrate, whUe  she  fashions  the  vertebrate;  she 
achieves  man,  while  she  preserves  the  monkey.  She 
gropes  her  way  hke  a  blind  man,  but  she  arrives  be- 
cause all  goals  are  hers.  Perceptive  intelligence  she 
has  given  in  varying  degrees  to  all  creatures,  but 
reasoning  intelligence  she  has  given  to  man  alone.  I 
say  "given,"  after  our  human  manner  of  speaking, 
when  I  mean  "achieve."  There  is  no  giving  in  Na- 
ture —  there  is  effort  and  development.  There  is  in- 
terchange and  interaction,  but  no  free  gifts.  Things 
are  bought  with  a  price.  The  price  of  the  mind  of 
man  —  who  can  estimate  what  it  has  been  through 
the  biological  and  geological  ages?  —  a  price  which 
his  long  line  of  antecedent  forms  has  paid  in  strug- 
gle and  suffering  and  death.  The  little  that  has  been 
added  to  the  size  of  his  brain  since  the  Piltdown 
man  and  the  Neanderthal  man  —  what  effort  and 
pain  has  not  that  cost?  We  pay  for  what  we  get,  or 
our  forbears  paid  for  it.  They  paid  for  the  size 
of  our  brains,  and  we  pay  for  our  progress  in 
knowledge. 

106 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

V 

The  term  "religion"  is  an  equivocal  and  much- 
abused  word,  but  I  am  convinced  that  no  man's  life 
is  complete  without  some  kind  of  an  emotional  ex- 
perience that  may  be  called  religious.  Not  necessa- 
rily so  much  a  definite  creed  or  belief  as  an  attraction 
and  aspiration  toward  the  Infinite,  or  a  feeling  of 
awe  and  reverence  inspired  by  the  contemplation  of 
this  wonderful  and  mysterious  universe,  something 
to  lift  a  man  above  purely  selfish  and  material  ends, 
and  open  his  soul  to  influences  from  the  highest 
heavens  of  thought. 

Religion  in  some  form  is  as  natural  to  man  as  are 
eating  and  sleeping.  The  mysteries  of  life  and  the 
wonder  and  terror  of  the  world  in  which  he  finds 
himself,  arouse  emotions  of  awe  and  fear  and  wor- 
ship in  him  as  soon  as  his  powers  of  reflection  are 
born.  In  man's  early  history  reUgion,  philosophy, 
and  literature  are  one.  He  worships  before  he  in- 
vestigates; he  builds  temples  before  he  builds 
schoolhouses  or  civic  halls.  He  is,  of  course,  super- 
stitious long  before  he  is  scientific;  he  trembles  be- 
fore the  supernatural  long  before  he  has  mastered 
the  natural.  The  mind  of  early  man  was  synthetic  as 
our  emotions  always  are;  it  lumped  things,  it  did 
not  differentiate  and  classify.  The  material  progress 
of  the  race  has  kept  pace  with  man's  power  of  analy- 
sis —  the  power  to  separate  one  thing  from  another, 
107 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

to  resolve  things  into  their  component  parts  and 
recombine  them  to  serve  his  own  purposes.  He  gets 
water  power,  steam  power,  electric  power,  by  sepa- 
rating a  part  from  the  whole  and  placing  his  ma- 
chinery where  they  tend  to  unite  again. 

Science  tends  more  and  more  to  reveal  to  us  the 
unity  that  underlies  the  diversity  of  nature.  We 
must  have  diversity  in  our  practical  lives  ;  we  must 
seize  Nature  by  many  handles.  But  our  intellectual 
lives  demand  unity,  demand  simplicity  amid  all 
this  complexity.  Our  religious  Uves  demand  the 
same.  Amid  all  the  diversity  of  creeds  and  sects  we 
are  coming  more  and  more  to  see  that  religion  is 
one,  that  verbal  differences  and  ceremonies  are 
unimportant,  and  that  the  fundamental  agreements 
are  alone  significant.  Religion  as  a  key  or  passport 
to  some  other  world  has  had  its  day;  as  a  mere  set 
of  statements  or  dogmas  about  the  Infinite  mystery 
it  has  had  its  day.  Science  makes  us  more  and  more 
at  home  in  this  world,  and  is  coming  more  and  more, 
to  the  intuitional  mind,  to  have  a  religious  value. 
Science  kills  credulity  and  superstition,  but  to  the 
well-balanced  mind  it  enhances  the  feeling  of  won- 
der, of  veneration,  and  of  kinship  which  we  feel  in 
the  presence  of  the  marvelous  universe.  It  quiets 
our  fears  and  apprehensions,  it  pours  oil  upon  the 
troubled  waters  of  our  lives,  and  reconciles  us  to  the 
world  as  it  is.  The  old  fickle  and  jealous  gods  be- 
gotten by  our  fears  and  morbid  consciences  fall 
108 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

away,  and  the  new  gods  of  law  and  order,  who  deal 
justly  if  mercilessly,  take  their  places. 

"The  mind  of  the  universe  which  we  share,"  is  a 
phrase  of  Thoreau's  —  a  large  and  sane  idea  which 
shines  like  a  star  amid  his  many  firefly  conceits  and 
paradoxes.  The  physical  life  of  each  of  us  is  a  part  or 
rill  of  the  universal  life  about  us,  as  surely  as  every 
ounce  of  our  strength  is  a  part  of  gravity.  With 
equal  certainty,  and  under  the  same  law,  our  men- 
tal lives  flow  from  the  fountain  of  universal  mind, 
the  cosmic  intelligence  which  guides  the  rootlets  of 
the  smallest  plant  as  it  searches  the  soil  for  the  ele- 
ments it  needs,  and  the  most  minute  insect  in  avail- 
ing itself  of  the  things  it  needs.  It  is  this  primal  cur- 
rent of  life,  the  two  different  phases  of  which  we  see 
in  our  bodies  and  in  our  minds,  that  continues  after 
our  own  special  embodiments  of  it  have  ceased;  in 
it  is  the  real  immortality.  The  universal  mind  does 
not  die,  the  universal  life  does  not  go  out.  The  jewel 
that  trembles  in  the  dewdrop,  the  rain  that  lends 
itself  to  the  painting  of  the  prismatic  colors  of  the 
bow  in  the  clouds,  pass  away,  but  their  fountain- 
head  in  the  sea  does  not  pass  away.  The  waters  may 
make  the  wonderful  circuit  through  the  clouds,  the 
air,  the  earth,  and  the  cells  and  veins  of  living 
things,  any  number  of  times  —  now  a  globule  of 
vapor  in  the  sky,  now  a  starlike  crystal  in  the  snow, 
now  the  painted  mist  of  a  waterfall,  then  the  limpid 
current  of  a  mountain  brook  —  and  still  the  sea  re- 
109 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

mains  unchanged.  And  though  the  life  and  mentaUty 
of  the  globe  passes  daily  and  is  daily  renewed,  the 
primal  source  of  those  things  is  as  abounding  as 
ever.  It  is  not  you  and  I  that  are  immortal;  it  is 
Creative  Energy,  of  which  we  are  a  part.  Our  im- 
mortality is  swallowed  up  in  this. 

The  poets,  the  prophets,  the  martyrs,  the  heroes, 
the  saints  —  where  are  they?  Each  was  but  a  jewel 
in  the  dew,  the  rain,  the  snowflake  —  throbbing, 
burning,  flashing  with  color  for  a  brief  time  and 
then  vanishing,  adorning  the  world  for  a  moment 
and  then  caught  away  into  the  great  abyss.  "O 
spendthrift  Nature!"  our  hearts  cry  out;  but  Na- 
ture's spending  is  only  the  ceaseless  merging  of  one 
form  into  another  without  diminution  of  her  mate- 
rial or  blurring  of  her  types.  Flowers  bloom  and  flow- 
ers fade,  the  seasons  come  and  the  seasons  go,  men 
are  bom  and  men  die,  the  world  mourns  for  its 
saints  and  heroes,  its  poets  and  saviors,  but  Nature 
remains  and  is  as  young  and  spontaneous  and  inex- 
haustible as  ever.  Where  is  the  comfort  in  all  this 
to  you  and  to  me?  There  is  none,  save  the  comfort 
or  satisfaction  of  knowing  things  as  they  are.  We 
shall  feel  more  at  ease  in  Zion  when  we  learn  to  dis- 
tinguish substance  from  shadow,  and  to  grasp  the 
true  significance  of  the  world  of  which  we  form  a 
part.  In  the  end  each  of  us  will  have  had  his  day, 
and  can  say  as  Whitman  does, 

"I  have  positively  appeared.  That  is  enough." 

110 


THE  NATURAL  PROVIDENCE 

In  us  or  through  us  the  Primal  Mind  will  have  con- 
templated and  enjoyed  its  own  works  and  will  con- 
tinue to  do  so  as  long  as  human  life  endures  on  this 
planet.  It  will  have  achieved  the  miracle  of  the  In- 
carnation, and  have  tasted  the  sweet  and  the  bitter, 
the  victories  and  the  defeats  of  evolution.  The  leg- 
end of  the  birth  and  life  of  Jesus  is  but  this  ever- 
present  naturalism  written  large  with  parable  and 
miracle  on  the  pages  of  our  religious  history.  In  the 
lives  of  each  of  us  the  supreme  reality  comes  down 
to  earth  and  takes  on  the  human  form  and  suffers 
all  the  struggles  and  pains  and  humiliations  of  mor- 
tal, finite  life.  Even  the  Christian  theory  of  the  vi- 
carious atonement  is  not  without  its  basis  of  natu- 
ralism. Men,  through  disease  and  ignorance  and 
half  knowledge,  store  up  an  experience  that  saves 
future  generations  from  suffering  and  failure.  We 
win  victories  for  our  descendants,  and  bring  the 
kingdom  nearer  for  them  by  the  devils  and  evil 
spirits  we  overcome. 


VII 

THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 
I 

TO  say  that  man  is  as  good  as  God  would  to  most 
persons  seem  like  blasphemy;  but  to  say  that 
man  is  as  good  as  Nature  would  disturb  no  one. 
Man  is  a  part  of  Nature,  or  a  phase  of  Nature,  and 
shares  in  what  we  call  her  imperfections.  But  what 
is  Nature  a  part  of,  or  a  phase  of?  —  and  what  or 
who  is  its  author?  Is  it  not  true  that  this  earth 
which  is  so  familiar  to  us  is  as  good  as  yonder  morn- 
ing or  evening  star  and  made  of  the  same  stuff?  — 
just  as  much  in  the  heavens,  just  as  truly  a  celestial 
abode  as  it  is?  Venus  seems  to  us  like  a  great  jewel 
in  the  crown  of  night  or  morning.  From  Venus  the 
earth  would  seem  like  a  still  larger  jewel.  The  heav- 
ens seem  afar  off  and  free  from  all  stains  and  im- 
purities of  earth;  we  lift  our  eyes  and  our  hearts  to 
them  as  to  the  face  of  the  Eternal,  but  our  science 
reveals  no  body  or  place  there  so  suitable  for  human 
abode  and  human  happiness  as  this  earth.  In  fact, 
this  planet  is  the  only  desirable  heaven  of  which  we 
have  any  clue.  Innumerable  other  worlds  exist  in 
the  abysses  of  space  which  may  be  the  abodes  of  be- 
ings superior,  and  of  beings  inferior,  to  ourselves. 
We  place  our  gods  afar  off  so  as  to  dehumanize 
112 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

them,  never  suspecting  that  when  we  do  so  we  dis- 
count their  divinity.  The  more  human  we  are, — 
remembering  that  to  err  is  human,  —  the  nearer 
God  we  are.  Of  course  good  and  bad  are  human  con- 
cepts and  are  a  verdict  upon  created  things  as  they 
stand  related  to  us,  promoting  or  hindering  our  well- 
being.  In  the  councils  of  the  Eternal  there  is  appar- 
ently no  such  distinction. 

Man  is  not  only  as  good  as  God;  some  men  are  a 
good  deal  better,  that  is,  from  our  point  of  view; 
they  attain  a  degree  of  excellence  of  which  there  is 
no  hint  in  nature  —  moral  excellence.  It  is  not  until 
we  treat  man  as  a  part  of  nature  —  as  a  product  of 
the  earth  as  literally  as  are  the  trees  —  that  we  can 
reconcile  these  contradictions.  If  we  could  build  up 
a  composite  man  out  of  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth, 
including  even  the  Prussians,  he  would  represent 
fairly  well  the  God  in  nature. 

Communing  with  God  is  communing  with  our 
own  hearts,  our  own  best  selves,  not  with  something 
foreign  and  accidental.  Saints  and  devotees  have 
gone  into  the  wilderness  to  find  God;  of  course  they 
took  God  with  them,  and  the  silence  and  detachment 
enabled  them  to  hear  the  still,  small  voice  of  their 
own  souls,  as  one  hears  the  ticking  of  his  own  watch 
in  the  stillness  of  the  night.  We  are  not  cut  off,  we 
are  not  isolated  points;  the  great  currents  flow 
through  us  and  over  us  and  around  us,  and  unite  us 
to  the  whole  of  nature.  Moses  saw  God  in  the  bum- 
113 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

ing  bush,  saw  him  with  the  eyes  of  early  man  whose 
divinities  were  clothed  in  the  extraordinary,  the 
fearful,  or  the  terrible;  we  see  him  in  the  meanest 
weed  that  grows,  and  hear  him  in  the  gentle  mur- 
mur of  our  own  heart's  blood.  The  language  of  de- 
votion and  religious  conviction  is  only  the  language 
of  soberness  and  truth  written  large  and  aflame 
with  emotion. 

Man  goes  away  from  home  searching  for  the  gods 
he  carries  with  him  always.  Man  can  know  and  feel 
and  love  only  man.  There  is  a  deal  of  sound  psy- 
chology in  the  new  religion  called  Christian  Science 
—  in  that  part  which  emphasizes  the  power  of  the 
mind  over  the  body,  and  the  fact  that  the  world  is 
largely  what  we  make  it,  that  evil  is  only  the  shadow 
of  good  —  old  truths  reburnished.  This  helps  us  to 
understand  the  hold  it  has  taken  upon  such  a  large 
number  of  admirable  persons.  Good  and  evil  are 
relative  terms,  but  evil  is  only  the  shadow  of  good. 
Disease  is  a  reality,  but  not  in  the  same  sense  that 
health  is  a  reality.  Positive  and  negative  electricity 
are  both  facts,  but  positive  and  negative  good  be- 
long to  a  different  order.  Christian  Science  will  not 
keep  the  distemper  out  of  the  house  if  the  sewer-gas 
gets  in;  inoculation  will  do  more  to  prevent  typhoid 
and  diphtheria  than  "declaring  the  truth"  or  say- 
ing your  prayers  or  counting  your  beads.  In  its 
therapeutical  value  experimental  science  is  the  only 
safe  guide  in  dealing  with  human  corporal  ailments. 
114 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

We  need  not  fear  alienation  from  God.  I  feed  Him 
when  I  feed  a  beggar.  I  serve  Him  when  I  serve  my 
neighbor.  I  love  Him  when  I  love  my  friend.  I  praise 
Him  when  I  praise  the  wise  and  good  of  any  race 
or  time.  I  shun  Him  when  I  shun  the  leper.  I  for- 
give Him  when  I  forgive  my  enemies.  I  wound  Him 
when  I  wound  a  human  being.  I  forget  Him  when  I 
forget  my  duty  to  others.  If  I  am  cruel  or  unjust 
or  resentful  or  envious  or  inhospitable  toward  any 
man,  woman,  or  child,  I  am  guilty  of  all  these  things 
toward  God:  "Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto 
one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have 
done  it  unto  me."      ^y^ 

II 

I  AM  persuaded  that  a  man  without  religion  falls 
short  of  the  proper  human  ideal.  Religion,  as  I  use 
the  term,  is  a  spiritual  flowering,  and  the  man  who 
has  it  not  is  like  a  plant  that  never  blooms.  The 
mind  that  does  not  open  and  unfold  its  religious 
sensibilities  in  the  sunshine  of  this  infinite  and 
spiritual  universe,  is  to  be  pitied.  Men  of  science  do 
well  enough  with  no  other  religion  than  the  love  of 
truth,  for  this  is  indirectly  a  love  of  God.  The  as- 
tronomer, the  geologist,  the  biologist,  tracing  the 
footsteps  of  the  Creative  Energy  throughout  the  uni- 
verse —  what  need  has  he  of  any  formal,  patent- 
right  religion?  Were  not  Darwin,  Huxley,  Tyndall, 
and  Lyell,  and  all  other  seekers  and  verifiers  of 
115 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

natural  truth  among  the  most  truly  religious  of 
men?  Any  of  these  men  would  have  gone  to  hell  for 
the  truth  —  not  the  truth  of  creeds  and  rituals,  bu^ 
the  truth  as  it  exists  in  the  councils  of  the  Eternal 
and  as  it  is  written  in  the  laws  of  matter  and  of  life. 

For  my  part  I  had  a  thousand  times  rather  have 
Huxley's  religion  than  that  of  the  bishops  who 
sought  to  discredit  him,  or  Bruno's  than  that  of  the 
church  that  burnt  him.  The  religion  of  a  man  that 
has  no  other  aim  than  his  own  personal  safety  from 
some  real  or  imaginary  future  calamity,  is  of  the 
selfish,  ignoble  kind. 

Amid  the  decay  of  creeds,  love  of  nature  has  high 
religious  value.  This  has  saved  many  persons  in  this 
world  —  saved  them  from  mammon-worship,  and 
from  the  frivolity  and  insincerity  of  the  crowd.  It 
has  made  their  lives  placid  and  sweet.  It  has  given 
them  an  inexhaustible  field  for  inquiry,  for  enjoy- 
ment, for  the  exercise  of  all  their  powers,  and  in  the 
end  has  not  left  them  soured  and  dissatisfied.  It  has 
made  them  contented  and  at  home  wherever  they 
are  in  nature  —  in  the  house  not  made  with  hands. 
This  house  is  their  church,  and  the  rocks  and  the 
hiUs  are  the  altars,  and  the  creed  is  written  in  the 
leaves  of  the  trees  and  in  the  flowers  of  the  field  and 
in  the  sands  of  the  shore.  A  new  creed  every  day 
and  new  preachers,  and  holy  days  all  the  week 
through.  Every  walk  to  the  woods  is  a  religious  rite, 
every  bath  in  the  stream  is  a  saving  ordinance. 
116 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Communion  service  is  at  all  hours,  and  the  bread 
and  wine  are  from  the  heart  and  marrow  of  Mother 
Earth.  There  are  no  heretics  in  Nature's  church;  all 
are  believers,  all  are  communicants.  The  beauty  of 
natural  religion  is  that  you  have  it  all  the  time;  you 
do  not  have  to  seek  it  afar  off  in  myths  and  legends, 
in  catacombs,  in  garbled  texts,  in  miracles  of  dead 
saints  or  wine-bibbing  friars.  It  is  of  to-day;  it  is 
now  and  here;  it  is  everywhere.  The  crickets  chirp  it, 
the  birds  sing  it,  the  breezes  chant  it,  the  thunder 
proclaims  it,  the  streams  murmur  it,  the  unaffected 
man  lives  it.  Its  incense  rises  from  the  plowed 
fields,  it  is  on  the  morning  breeze,  it  is  in  the  forest 
breath  and  in  the  spray  of  the  wave.  The  frosts 
write  it  in  exquisite  characters,  the  dews  impearl  it, 
and  the  rainbow  paints  it  on  the  cloud.  It  is  not  an 
insurance  policy  underwritten  by  a  bishop  or  a 
priest;  it  is  not  even  a  faith;  it  is  a  love,  an  enthusi- 
asm, a  consecration  to  natural  truth. 

The  God  of  sunshine  and  of  storms  speaks  a  less 
equivocal  language  than  the  God  of  revelation. 

Our  fathers  had  their  religion  and  their  fathers 
had  theirs,  but  they  were  not  ours,  and  could  not  be 
in  those  days  and  under  those  conditions.  But  their 
religions  lifted  them  above  themselves;  they  healed 
their  wounds;  they  consoled  them  for  many  of  the 
failures  and  disappointments  of  this  world;  they  de- 
veloped character;  they  tempered  the  steel  in  their 
nature.  How  childish  to  us  seems  the  plan  of  salva- 
117 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

tion,  as  our  fathers  found  it  in  the  fervid  and,  I 
freely  say,  inspired  utterances  of  Saint  Paul !  But  it 
saved  them,  it  buUt  character,  it  made  life  serious, 
it  was  an  heroic  creed  which  has  lost  credence  in  our 
more  knowing  and  more  frivolous  age.  We  see  how 
impossible  it  is,  but  we  do  not  see  the  great  natural 
truths  upon  which  it  rests. 

A  man  is  not  saved  by  the  truth  of  the  things  he 
beheves,  but  by  the  truth  of  his  belief  —  its  sincer- 
ity, its  harmony  wath  his  character.  The  absurdities 
of  the  popular  rehgions  do  not  matter;  what  matters 
is  the  lukewarm  belief,  the  empty  forms,  the  shal- 
low conceptions  of  life  and  duty.  We  are  prone  to 
think  that  if  the  creed  is  false,  the  religion  is  false. 
Religion  is  an  emotion,  an  inspiration,  a  feeling  of 
the  Infinite,  and  may  have  its  root  in  any  creed  or  in 
no  creed.  What  can  be  more  unphilosophical  than 
the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  Scientists?  Yet 
Christian  Science  is  a  good  practical  religion.  It 
makes  people  cheerful,  happy,  and  helpful  —  yes, 
and  helps  make  them  healthy  too.  Its  keynote  is 
love,  and  love  holds  the  universe  together.  Any 
creed  that  ennobles  character  and  opens  a  door  or  a 
window  upon  the  deeper  meanings  of  this  marvelous 
universe  is  good  enough  to  live  by,  and  good  enough 
to  die  by.  The  Japanese-Chinese  religion  of  ancestor 
worship,  sincerely  and  devoutly  held,  is  better  than 
the  veneer  of  much  of  our  fashionable  well-dressed 
religion. 

118 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Guided  by  appearances  alone,  how  surely  we 
should  come  to  look  upon  the  sun  as  a  mere  append- 
age of  the  earth!  —  as  much  so  as  is  the  moon.  How 
near  it  seems  at  sunrise  and  sunset,  and  as  if  these 
phenomena  directly  involved  the  sun,  extending  to 
it  and  modifying  its  light  and  heat!  We  do  not  real- 
ize that  these  are  merely  terrestrial  phenomena, 
and  that  the  sun,  so  to  speak,  knows  them  not. 

Viewed  from  the  sun  the  earth  is  a  mere  speck  in 
the  sky,  and  the  amount  of  the  total  light  and  heat 
from  the  sun  that  is  received  on  the  earth  is  so 
small  that  the  mind  can  hardly  grasp  it.  Yet  for  all 
practical  purposes  the  sun  shines  for  us  alone.  Our 
relation  to  it  could  not  be  any  more  direct  and  sus- 
taining if  it  were  created  for  that  purpose.  It  is  im- 
manent in  the  life  of  the  globe.  It  is  the  source  of  all 
our  energy  and  therefore  of  our  life.  Its  bounties  are 
universal.  The  other  planets  find  it  is  their  sun  also. 
It  is  as  special  and  private  to  them  as  to  us.  We 
think  the  sun  paints  the  bow  on  the  cloud,  but  the 
bow  follows  from  the  laws  of  optics.  The  sun  knows 
it  not. 

It  is  the  same  with  what  we  call  God.  His  bounty 
is  of  the  same  universal,  impersonal  kind,  and  yet 
for  all  practical  purposes  it  exists  especially  for  us, 
it  is  immanent  every  moment  in  our  lives.  There  is 
no  special  Providence.  Nature  sends  the  rain  upon 
the  just  and  the  unjust,  upon  the  sea  as  upon  the 
land.  We  are  here  and  find  life  good  because  Provi- 
119 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

dence  is  general  and  not  special.  The  conditions  are 
not  too  easy,  the  struggle  has  made  men  of  us.  The 
bitter  has  tempered  the  sweet.  Evil  has  put  us  on 
our  guard  and  keeps  us  so.  We  pay  for  what  we  get. 

ui 
That  wise  old  Roman,  Marcus  Aurelius,  says, 
"Nothing  is  evil  which  is  according  to  nature."  At 
that  moment  he  is  thinking  especially  of  death 
which,  when  it  comes  in  the  course  of  nature,  is  not 
an  evil,  unless  life  itself  is  also  an  evil.  After  the 
lamp  of  life  is  burned  out,  death  is  not  an  evil, 
rather  is  it  a  good.  But  premature  death,  death  by 
accident  or  disease,  before  a  man  has  done  his  work 
or  used  up  his  capital  of  vitality,  is  an  evil.  Disease 
Uself  is  an  evil,  but  if  we  lived  according  to  nature 
there  would  be  no  disease;  we  should  die  the  natural, 
painless  death  of  old  age.  Of  course  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  absolute  evil  or  absolute  good.  Evil  is  that 
which  is  against  our  well-being,  and  good  is  that 
which  promotes  it.  We  always  postulate  the  exist- 
ence of  life  when  we  speak  of  good  and  evil.  Ex- 
cesses in  nature  are  evil  to  us  because  they  bring 
destruction  and  death  in  their  train.  They  are  dis- 
harmonies in  the  scheme  of  things,  because  they 
frustrate  and  bring  to  naught.  The  war  which  Mar- 
cus Aurehus  was  waging  when  he  wrote  those  pas- 
sages was  an  evil  in  itself,  though  good  might  come 
out  of  it. 

120 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

Everything  in  organic  nature  —  trees,  grasses, 
flowers,  insects,  fishes,  mammals  —  is  beset  by  evil 
of  some  kind.  The  natural  order  is  good  because  it 
brought  us  here  and  keeps  us  here,  but  evil  has  al- 
ways dogged  our  footsteps.  Leaf -blight  is  an  evil  to 
the  tree,  smallpox  is  an  evil  to  man,  frost  is  an  evil 
to  the  insects,  flood  an  evil  to  the  fishes. 

Moral  evil  —  hatred,  envy,  greed,  lying,  cruelty, 
cheating  —  is  of  another  order.  These  vices  have  no 
existence  below  the  human  sphere.  We  call  them 
evils  because  they  are  disharmonies;  they  are  inimi- 
cal to  the  highest  standard  of  human  happiness  and 
well-being.  They  make  a  man  less  a  man,  they  work 
discord  and  develop  needless  friction.  Sand  in  the 
engine  of  your  car  and  water  in  the  gasoline  are 
evils,  and  malice  and  jealousy  and  selfishness  in 
your  heart  are  analogous  evils. 

In  our  day  we  read  the  problem  of  Nature  and 
God  in  a  new  light,  the  light  of  science,  or  of  eman- 
cipated human  reason,  and  the  old  myths  mean  lit- 
tle to  us.  We  accept  Nature  as  we  find  it,  and  do  not 
crave  the  intervention  of  a  God  that  sits  behind 
and  is  superior  to  it.  The  self-activity  of  the 
cosmos  suffices.  We  accept  the  tornadoes  and  earth- 
quakes and  world  wars,  and  do  not  lose  faith.  We 
arm  ourselves  against  them  as  best  we  can.  We  ac- 
cept the  bounty  of  the  rain,  the  sunshine,  the  soil, 
the  changing  seasons,  and  the  vast  armory  of  non- 
living forces,  and  from  them  equip  or  teach  our- 
121 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

selves  to  escape,  endure,  modify,  or  ward  ofiF  the 
destructive  and  non-human  forces  that  beset  our 
way.  We  draw  our  strength  from  the  Nature  that 
seems  and  is  so  regardless  of  us;  our  health  and 
wholeness  are  its  gifts.  The  biologic  ages,  with  all 
their  carnival  of  huge  and  monstrous  forms,  had  our 
well-being  at  heart.  The  evils  and  dangers  that  be- 
set our  way  have  been  outmatched  by  the  good  and 
the  helpful.  The  deep-sea  fish  would  burst  and  die  if 
brought  to  the  surface;  the  surface  life  would  be 
crushed  and  killed  in  the  deep  sea.  Life  adapts  itself 
to  its  environment;  hard  conditions  make  it  hard. 
"Winds,  floods,  inclement  seasons,  have  driven  it 
around  the  earth;  the  severer  the  cold,  the  thicker 
the  fur;  compensations  always  abound.  If  Nature  is 
not  all-wise  and  all-merciful  from  our  human  point 
of  view,  she  has  placed  us  in  a  world  where  our  own 
wisdom  and  mercy  can  be  developed;  she  has  sent 
us  to  a  school  in  which  we  learn  to  see  her  own 
shortcomings  and  imperfections,  and  to  profit  by 
them. 

The  unreasoning,  unforeseeing  animals  suffer 
more  from  the  accidents  of  nature  —  drought, 
flood,  lightning  —  than  man  does;  but  man  suffers 
more  from  evils  of  his  own  making  —  war,  greed, 
intemperance,  pestilence  —  so  that  the  develop- 
ment in  both  lines  goes  on,  and  life  is  still  at  the 
flood. 

Good  and  evil  are  inseparable.  We  cannot  have 
122 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

light  without  shade,  or  warmth  without  cold,  or  life 
without  death,  or  development  without  struggle. 
The  struggle  for  life,  of  which  Darwinism  makes  so 
much,  is  only  the  struggle  of  the  chick  to  get  out  of 
the  shell,  or  of  the  flower  to  burst  its  bud,  or  of  the 
root  to  penetrate  the  soil.  It  is  not  the  struggle  of 
battle  and  hate  —  the  justification  of  war  and  usur- 
pation —  it  is  for  the  most  part  a  beneficent  strug- 
gle with  the  environment,  in  which  the  fittest  of  the 
individual  units  of  a  species  survive,  but  in  which 
the  strong  and  the  feeble,  the  great  and  the  small  of 
species  alike  survive.  The  lamb  survives  with  the 
lion,  the  wren  with  the  eagle,  the  Esquimo  with  the 
European  —  all  manner  of  smaU  and  delicate  forms 
survive  with  the  great  and  robust.  One  species  of 
camivora,  or  of  rodents,  or  herbivora,  does  not,  as  a 
rule,  exterminate  another  species.  It  is  true  that 
species  prey  upon  species,  that  cats  eat  mice,  that 
hawks  eat  smaller  birds,  and  that  man  slays  and 
eats  the  domestic  animals.  Probably  man  alone  has 
exterminated  species.  But  outside  of  man's  doings 
all  the  rest  belongs  to  Nature's  system  of  checks  and 
balances,  and  bears  no  analogy  to  human  or  inhu- 
man wars  and  conquests. 

Life  struggles  with  matter,  the  tree  struggles  with 
the  wind  and  with  other  trees.  Man  struggles  with 
gravity,  cold,  wet,  heat,  and  all  the  forces  that  hin- 
der him.  The  tiniest  plant  that  grows  has  to  force  its 
root  down  into  the  soil;  earlier  than  that  it  has  to 
123 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

burst  its  shell  or  case.  The  com  struggles  to  hft  itself 
up  after  the  storm  has  beaten  it  down;  eflfort,  effort, 
everywhere  in  the  organic  world.  Says  Whitman: 

"  Urge  and  urge  and  urge. 
Always  the  procreant  urge  of  the  world." 

IV 

Every  few  years  we  have  an  ice-storm  or  a  snow- 
storm that  breaks  down  and  disfigures  the  trees. 
Some  trees  suffer  much  more  than  others.  The 
storm  goes  its  way;  the  laws  of  physical  force  pre- 
vail; the  great  world  of  mechanical  forces  is  let  loose 
upon  the  small  world  of  vital  forces;  occasionally  a 
tree  is  so  crushed  that  it  never  entirely  recovers; 
but  after  many  years  the  woods  and  groves  have 
repaired  the  damages  and  taken  on  their  wonted 
thrifty  appearance.  The  evil  was  only  temporary; 
the  world  of  trees  has  suffered  no  permanent  set- 
back. But  had  the  trees  been  conscious  beings,  what 
a  deal  of  suffering  they  would  have  experienced !  An 
analogous  visitation  to  human  communities  entails 
a  heritage  of  misery,  but  in  time  it  too  is  forgotten 
and  its  scars  healed.  Fire,  blood,  war,  epidemics, 
earthquakes,  are  such  visitations,  but  the  race  sur- 
vives them  and  reaps  good  from  them. 

We  say  that  Nature  cares  nothing  for  the  individ- 
ual, but  only  for  the  race  or  the  species.  The  whole 
organic  world  is  at  war  with  the  inorganic,  and  as  in 
human  wars  the  individuals  are  sacrificed  that  the 
124 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

army,  the  whole,  may  live;  so  in  the  strife  and  com- 
petition of  nature,  the  separate  miits  fall  that  the 
mass  may  prosper. 

It  is  probably  true  that  in  the  course  of  the  bio- 
logical history  of  the  earth,  whole  species  have  been 
rendered  extinct  by  parasites,  or  by  changing  out- 
ward conditions.  But  this  has  been  the  exception, 
and  not  the  rule.  The  chestnut  blight  now  seems  to 
threaten  the  very  existence  of  this  species  of  tree  in 
this  country,  but  I  think  the  chances  are  that  this 
fungus  will  meet  with  some  natural  check. 

In  early  summer  comes  the  June  drop  of  apples. 
The  trees  start  with  more  fruit  than  they  can  carry, 
and  if  they  are  in  vigorous  health,  they  will  drop 
the  surplus.  It  is  a  striking  illustration  of  Nature's 
methods.  The  tree  does  its  own  thinning.  But  if  not 
at  the  top  of  its  condition,  it  fails  to  do  this.  It  takes 
health  and  strength  simply  to  let  go;  only  a  living 
tree  drops  its  fruit  or  its  leaves;  only  a  growing  man 
drops  his  outgrown  opinions. 

If  we  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  dropped 
apples,  we  must  look  upon  our  fate  as  unmixed  evil. 
If  we  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  tree  and  of 
the  apples  that  remain  on  it,  the  June  drop  would 
appear  an  unmixed  good  —  finer  fruit,  and  a  health- 
ier, longer-lived  tree  results.  Nature  does  not  work 
so  much  to  specific  as  to  universal  ends.  The  indi- 
vidual may  go,  but  the  type  must  remain.  The  ranks 
may  be  decimated,  but  the  army  and  its  cause  must 
125 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

triumph.  Life  in  all  its  forms  is  a  warfare  only  in  the 
sense  that  it  is  a  struggle  with  its  outward  condi- 
tions, in  which,  other  things  being  equal,  the  strong- 
est force  prevails.  SmaU  and  weak  forms  prevail 
also,  because  the  competing  forms  are  small  and 
weak,  or  because  at  the  feast  of  life  there  is  a  place 
for  the  small  and  weak  also.  But  lion  against  lion, 
man  against  man,  mouse  against  mouse,  the  strong- 
est will,  in  the  end,  be  the  victor. 

Man's  efifort  is  to  save  waste,  to  reduce  friction,  to 
take  short  cuts,  to  make  smooth  the  way,  to  seize 
the  advantage,  to  economize  time,  but  the  physical 
forces  know  none  of  these  things. 

Go  into  the  woods  and  behold  the  evil  the  trees 
have  to  contend  with  —  all  typical  of  the  evil  we 
have  to  contend  with  —  too  crowded  in  places,  one 
tree  crushing  another  by  its  fall,  specimens  on  every 
hand  whose  term  of  life  might  be  lengthened  by  a 
little  wise  surgery;  borers,  blight,  disease,  insect 
pests,  storm,  wreckage,  thunderbolt  scars,  or  de- 
struction —  evil  in  a  hundred  forms  besetting  every 
tree,  and  sooner  or  later  leaving  its  mark.  A  few 
escape  —  oaks,  maples,  pines,  elms  —  and  reach  a 
greater  age  than  the  others,  but  they  fail  at  last,  and 
when  they  have  rounded  out  their  green  century,  or 
ten  centuries,  and  go  down  in  a  gale,  or  in  the  still- 
ness of  a  summer  night,  how  often  younger  trees  are 
marred  or  crushed  by  their  fall !  But  come  back  after 
many  long  years,  and  their  places  are  filled,  and  all 
126 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

the  scars  are  healed.  The  new  generation  of  trees 
is  feeding  upon  the  accumulations  of  the  old.  Evil 
is  turned  to  good.  The  destruction  of  the  cyclone, 
the  ravages  of  fire,  the  wreckage  of  the  ice-storm, 
are  all  obliterated  and  the  forest-spirit  is  rank  and 
full  again. 

There  is  no  wholesale  exemption  from  this  rule  of 
waste  and  struggle  in  this  world,  nor  probably  in  any 
other.  We  have  life  on  these  terms.  The  organic 
world  develops  under  pressure  from  within  and  from 
without.  Rain  brings  the  perils  of  rain,  fire  brings 
the  perils  of  fire,  power  brings  the  perils  of  power. 
The  great  laws  go  our  way,  but  they  will  break  us  or 
rend  us  if  we  fail  to  keep  step  with  them.  Unmixed 
good  is  a  dream;  unmixed  happiness  is  a  dream;  per- 
fection is  a  dream;  heaven  and  hell  are  both  dreams 
of  our  mixed  and  struggling  lives,  the  one  the  out- 
come of  our  aspirations  for  the  good,  the  other  the 
outcome  of  our  fear  of  evil. 

The  trees  in  the  woods,  the  plants  in  the  fields 
encounter  hostile  forces  the  year  through;  storms 
crash  or  overthrow  them;  visible  and  invisible  ene- 
mies prey  upon  them;  yet  are  the  fields  clothed  in 
verdure  and  the  hills  and  plains  mantled  with  su- 
perb forests.  Nature's  haphazard  planting  and  sow- 
ing and  her  wasteful  weeding  and  trimming  do  not 
result  in  failure  as  these  methods  do  with  us.  A  fail- 
ure of  hers  with  one  form  or  species  results  in  the 
success  of  some  other  form.  All  successes  are  hers. 
127 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Allow  time  enough  and  the  forest  returns  in  the 
path  of  the  tornado,  but  maybe  with  other  species  of 
trees.  The  birds  and  squirrels  plant  oaks  and  chest- 
nuts amid  the  pines  and  the  winds  plant  pines  amid 
the  oaks  and  chestnuts.  The  robins  and  the  cedar- 
birds  sow  the  red  cedar  broadcast  over  the  land- 
scape, and  plant  the  Virginia  creeper  and  the  poison- 
ivy  by  every  stub  and  fence-post.  The  poison-ivy  is 
a  triumph  of  Nature  as  truly  as  is  the  grapevine  or 
the  morning-glory.  All  are  hers.  Man  specializes; 
he  selects  this  or  that,  selects  the  wheat  and  re- 
jects the  tares;  but  Nature  generalizes;  she  has  the 
artist's  disinterestedness;  aU  is  good;  all  are  parts  of 
her  scheme.  She  nourishes  the  foul-smelling  cat- 
brier  as  carefuUy  as  she  does  the  rose.  Each  creature, 
with  man  at  the  head,  says,  "The  world  is  mine;  it 
was  created  for  me."  Evidently  it  was  created  for 
all,  at  least  all  forms  are  at  home  here.  Nature's  sys- 
tem of  checks  and  balances  preserves  her  working 
equilibrium.  If  a  species  of  forest  worm  under  some 
exceptionally  favoring  conditions  gets  such  a  start 
that  it  threatens  to  destroy  our  beech  and  maple 
forests,  presently  a  parasite,  stimulated  by  this  turn 
in  its  favor,  appears  and  restores  the  balance.  For 
two  or  three  seasons  the  beech-woods  in  my  native 
town  were  ravaged  by  some  kind  of  worm  or  beetle; 
in  midsummer  the  sunlight  came  into  them  as  if  the 
roof  had  been  taken  off;  later  they  swarmed  with 
white  millers.  But  the  scourge  was  suddenly  checked 
128 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

—  some  parasite,  probably  a  species  of  ichneumon- 
fly,  was  on  hand  to  curtail  the  dangerous  excess. 

I  am  only  trying  to  say  that  after  we  have  painted 
Nature  as  black  as  the  case  will  allow,  after  we  have 
depicted  her  as  a  savage  beast,  a  devastating  storm, 
a  scorching  desert,  a  consuming  fire,  an  all-engulfing 
earthquake,  or  as  war,  pestilence,  famine,  we  have 
only  depicted  her  from  our  Umited  human  point  of 
view.  But  even  from  that  point  of  view  the  favoring 
conditions  of  life  are  so  many,  living  bodies  are  so 
adaptive,  the  lift  of  the  evolutionary  impulse  is  so 
unconquerable,  the  elemental  laws  and  forces  are  so 
overwhelmingly  on  our  side,  that  our  position  in  the 
universe  is  still  an  enviable  one.  "Though  he  slay 
me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him."  Slain,  I  shall  nourish 
some  other  form  of  life,  and  the  books  will  still  bal- 
ance —  not  my  books,  but  the  vast  ledgers  of  the 
Eternal. 

In  the  old  times  we  accounted  for  creation  in  the 
simple  terms  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  —  "  In  the 
beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth." 
We  even  saw  no  discrepancy  in  the  tradition  that 
creation  took  place  in  the  spring.  But  when  we 
attempt  to  account  for  creation  in  the  terms  of 
science  or  naturalism,  the  problem  is  far  from  be- 
ing so  simple.  We  have  not  so  tangible  a  point 
from  which  to  start.  It  is  as  if  we  were  trying  to 
find  the  end  or  the  beginning  of  the  circle.  Round 
and  round  we  go,  caught  in  the  endless  and  begin- 
129 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

nlngless  currents  of  the  Creative  Energy;  no  fixity 
or  finality  anywhere;  rest  and  motion,  great  and 
small,  up  and  down,  heat  and  cold,  good  and  evil, 
near  and  far,  only  relative;  cause  and  effect  merging 
and  losing  themselves  in  each  other;  life  and  death 
perpetually  playing  into  each  other's  hands;  interior 
within  interior;  depth  beneath  depth;  height  above 
height;  the  tangible  thrilled  and  vibrating  with  the 
intangible;  the  material  in  bonds  to  the  non-mate- 
rial; invisible,  impalpable  forces  streaming  around 
us  and  through  us;  perpetual  change  and  trans- 
formation on  every  hand;  every  day  a  day  of  crea- 
tion, every  night  a  revelation  of  unspeakable  gran- 
deur; suns  and  systems  forming  in  the  cyclones  of 
Stardust;  the  whole  starry  host  of  heaven  flowing 
like  a  meadow  brook,  but  where,  or  whence,  who  can 
tell?  The  center  everywhere,  the  circumference  no- 
where; pain  and  pleasure,  good  and  evil,  inextri- 
cably mixed ;  the  fall  of  man  a  daily  and  hourly  occur- 
rence; the  redemption  of  man,  the  same!  Heaven  or 
hell  waiting  by  every  doorstep,  boundless,  begin- 
ningless,  unspeakable,  immeasurable  —  what  won- 
der that  we  seek  a  short  cut  through  this  wilderness 
and  appeal  to  the  supernatural? 

When  I  look  forth  upon  the  world  and  see  how, 
regardless  of  man  and  his  well-being,  the  operations 
of  Nature  go  on  —  how  the  winds  and  the  storms 
wreck  him  or  destroy  him,  how  the  drought  or  the 
floods  bring  to  naught  his  industries,  how  not  the 
130 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

least  force  in  heaven  or  earth  turns  aside  for  him,  or 
makes  any  exception  to  him ;  in  short,  how  all  forms 
of  life  are  perpetually  ground  between  the  upper 
and  the  nether  millstones  of  the  contending  and 
clashing  natural  material  forces,  I  ask  myself:  "Is 
there  nothing,  then,  under  the  sun,  or  beyond  the 
sun,  that  has  a  stake  in  our  well-being?  Is  life  purely 
a  game  of  chance,  and  is  it  all  luck  that  we  are  here 
in  a  world  so  richly  endowed  to  meet  all  our  require- 
ments?" Serene  Reason  answers:  "No,  it  is  not  luck 
as  in  a  lottery.  It  is  the  good  fortune  of  the  whole.  It 
was  inherent  in  the  constitution  of  the  whole,  and  it 
continues  because  of  its  adaptability;  Ufe  is  here  be- 
cause it  fits  itself  into  the  scheme  of  things;  it  is 
flexible  and  compromising."  We  find  the  world 
good  to  be  in  because  we  are  adapted  to  it,  and  not 
it  to  us.  The  vegetable  growth  upon  the  rocks 
where  the  sea  is  forever  pounding  is  a  type  of  life; 
the  waves  favor  its  development.  Life  takes  advan- 
tage of  turbulence  as  well  as  of  quietude,  of  drought 
as  well  as  of  floods,  of  deserts  as  well  as  of  marshes, 
of  the  sea-bottom  as  well  as  of  the  mountain-tops. 
Both  animal  and  vegetable  life  trim  their  sails  to 
the  forces  that  beat  upon  them.  The  image  of  the 
sail  is  a  good  one.  Life  avails  itself  of  the  haK-con- 
trary  winds;  it  captures  and  imprisons  their  push 
in  its  sails;  by  yielding  a  little,  it  makes  headway 
in  the  teeth  of  the  gale;  it  gives  and  takes;  without 
struggle,  without  opposition,  life  would  not  be  life. 
131 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

The  sands  of  the  shore  do  not  struggle  with  the 
waves,  nor  the  waves  with  the  sands;  the  buffeting 
ends  where  it  began.  But  trees  struggle  with  the 
wind,  fish  struggle  with  the  flood,  man  struggles 
with  his  environment;  all  draw  energy  from  the 
forces  that  oppose  them.  Life  gains  as  it  spends;  its 
waste  is  an  investment.  Not  so  with  purely  material 
bodies.  They  are  like  the  clock,  they  must  be  per- 
petually wound  from  without.  A  living  body  is  a 
clock,  perpetually  self-wound  from  within. 

The  faith  and  composure  of  the  naturalist  or 
naturist  are  proof  against  the  worst  that  Nature  can 
do.  He  sees  the  cosmic  forces  only;  he  sees  nothing 
directly  mindful  of  man,  but  man  himself;  he  sees 
the  intelligence  and  beneficence  of  the  universe  flow- 
ering in  man;  he  sees  life  as  a  mysterious  issue  of  the 
warring  element;  he  sees  human  consciousness  and 
our  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  of  truth  and  justice, 
as  arising  in  the  evolutionary  sequence,  and  turning 
and  sitting  in  judgment  upon  all  things;  he  sees  that 
there  can  be  no  life  without  pain  and  death;  that 
there  can  be  no  harmony  without  discord;  that  op- 
posites  go  hand  in  hand;  that  good  and  evil  are  in- 
extricably mingled;  that  the  sun  and  blue  sky  are 
still  there  behind  the  clouds,  unmindful  of  them; 
that  all  is  right  with  the  world  if  we  extend  our 
vision  deep  enough ;  that  the  ways  of  Nature  are  the 
ways  of  God  if  we  do  not  make  God  in  our  own 
image,  and  make  our  comfort  and  well-being  the 
132 


THE  FAITH  OF  A  NATURALIST 

prime  object  of  Nature.  Our  comfort  and  well-being 
are  provided  for  in  the  constitution  of  the  world,  but 
we  may  say  that  they  are  not  guaranteed;  they  are 
contingent  upon  many  things,  but  the  chances  are 
upon  our  side.  He  that  would  save  his  life  shall  lose 
it  —  lose  it  in  forgetting  that  the  universe  is  not  a 
close  corporation,  or  a  patented  article,  and  that  it 
exists  for  other  ends  than  our  own.  But  he  who  can 
lose  his  life  in  the  larger  life  of  the  whole  shall  save 
it  in  a  deeper,  truer  sense. 


VIII 

A  FALLACY  MADE  IN  GERMANY 

DURING  the  Great  War  the  question  was 
asked,  *'Do  the  mexorable  laws  of  evolution 
apply  to  human  beings  as  they  apply  to  the  lower 
animals  and  to  plants?"  Most  assuredly  they  do, 
but  with  a  difference.  Man  is  as  certainly  one  of  the 
results  of  the  evolutionary  process  as  is  the  horse  or 
the  dog,  the  tree  or  the  plant.  We  are  as  certain  of 
his  animal  origin  as  we  can  well  be  of  anything  in 
the  biological  history  of  the  globe.  But  the  inference 
which  has  so  often  been  drawn  from  this  fact  — 
namely,  that  man's  development  involves  the  same 
factors,  and  is  along  parallel  lines  —  is  a  fallacy. 
That  the  supremacy  of  might,  which  has  ruled,  and 
still  rules  in  nature  below  man,  justifies  the  rule  of 
might  in  human  communities  in  our  day,  is  an  in- 
vention of  perverted  human  ambition. 

As  Nature  rules  by  the  law  of  might,  and  as  man 
is  a  part  of  Nature,  why  is  he  not  under  the  same 
rule?  The  answer  is  that  man  is  an  exceptional  crea- 
ture; that  while  he  is  a  part  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
he  is  a  new  kind  of  animal;  and  while  he  is  the  out- 
come of  evolution,  like  the  rest,  new  factors  which 
are  not  operative  in  the  orders  below  him  have 
played  a  leading  part  in  his  later  development. 
134 


A  FALLACY  MADE  IN  GERMANY 

"Hiese  factors  are  his  reason,  which  gives  him  a 
sense  of  the  true  and  the  false,  and  his  conscience, 
which  gives  him  a  sense  of  right  and  wrong.  These 
faculties  subordinate  the  rule  of  might  to  the  rule 
of  right.  They  have  resulted  in  the  establishment  of 
standards  of  conduct  for  individuals,  for  communi- 
ties, and  for  organized  governments  that  do  not 
exist  among  the  lower  animal  orders,  and  only  in  a 
very  limited  sense  in  the  lower  human  orders. 

There  is  no  question  of  right  and  wrong  among 
the  plants  of  the  field,  or  the  trees  of  the  forest,  or 
the  birds  of  the  air,  or  the  beasts  of  the  earth  — 
only  the  question  of  power  to  survive;  might  in  the 
sense  of  power  of  adaptation  settles  the  question. 

Since  the  dawn  of  history  man's  moral  and  in- 
tellectual faculties  have  come  more  and  more  to  the 
fore,  the  moral  standards  always  lagging  a  little  be- 
hind the  intellectual  and  the  aesthetic  standards. 
Among  nearly  all  the  more  advanced  ancient  races 
the  concepts  of  justice,  of  mercy,  and  of  fair  dealing 
were  dull  and  sluggish  in  comparison  with  their  in- 
tellectual acumen  and  their  artistic  achievements. 
The  Greeks  would  lie  and  steal  and  set  on  foot 
piratical  expeditions  against  their  neighbors,  while 
yet  they  produced  such  men  as  Aristotle  and  Plato, 
and  such  artists  as  Phidias  and  Praxiteles. 

In  our  day  the  whole  civilized  world  was  shocked 
and  alarmed  by  the  moral  lapse  of  a  great  people 
ranking  among  the  highest  in  intelligence  and  ma- 
135 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

terial  eflBciency,  suddenly  preaching  and  practicing 
the  doctrine  of  might  over  right  which  prevails  in 
the  orders  below  man.  The  German  philosophers 
brazenly  justified  their  nation's  course  in  their  ag- 
gressive war,  with  all  its  attendant  horrors,  by  an 
appeal  to  the  Darwinian  doctrines  of  the  strug- 
gle for  existence,  and  the  consequent  survival  of 
the  fittest,  doctrines  which  play  such  a  prominent 
part  in  biological  evolution.  The  nation  suddenly 
slumped  into  a  barbarism  worse  than  that  of  their 
ancestral  Huns.  The  Hun  was  again  triumphant, 
gloating  over  the  prospect  of  the  rich  plunder  and 
the  orgies  of  wine  and  lust  that  awaited  him  in  new 
fields  of  conquest.  It  was  a  spectacle  to  make  the 
Genius  of  Humanity  veil  her  face  and  weep  tears  of 
blood. 

All  that  was  noble  and  precious  in  international 
relations;  standards  of  conduct  that  it  had  taken 
long  generations  to  achieve;  the  peace  and  good- 
will of  the  world;  cooperation  in  scientific  fields,  and 
in  endeavors  toward  human  betterment  —  all  went 
by  the  board  before  the  Teutonic  debauch  of  greed 
and  lust  for  blood  and  conquest. 

Seriously  to  discuss  in  our  day  the  question  of  the 
rule  of  might  over  right  —  that  force  is  the  arbiter 
of  justice  in  human  relations,  except  when  it  is  in- 
voked to  chastise  the  offender  —  seems  a  waste  of 
time.  On  how  low  a  plane  must  a  people  live  whose 
leaders  appeal  to  the  way  of  the  tiger  with  his  prey, 
136 


A  FALLACY  MADE  IN  GERMANY 

or  of  the  boa  constrictor  with  his  victim,  in  estab- 
Hshing  relations  with  other  peoples!  This  ferocious 
appeal  of  kaiserism  to  predatory  nature  —  to  "Na- 
ture red  in  tooth  and  claw  "  —  in  order  to  set  itself 
right  before  the  conscience  of  mankind,  is  as  fatuous 
as  it  is  fallacious.  If  we  could  reckon  without  the 
sense  of  right  and  wrong,  which  has  a  survival  value 
as  real  as  any  form  of  physical  might  or  power  of 
adaptation,  especially  with  the  later  civiUzed  na- 
tions (except  Germany),  a  different  face  would  be 
put  upon  the  question.  But  we  cannot.  The  flood- 
tide  of  world  democracy  and  humanity  is  setting  too 
strongly  in  that  direction,  and  we  can  only  hope 
and  pray  that  misguided  Germany  may  in  the  new 
generation  be  caught  up  and  borne  forward  to  new 
greatness  and  world  usefulness,  on  the  bosom  of  the 
same  tide. 


IX 

THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT. 
I 

THE  biological  law  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
strong  over  the  weak,  of  the  fit  over  the  less 
fit,  which  prevails  throughout  the  world  of  living 
things,  gives  us  pause  when  it  is  applied  to  human 
history  and  to  the  relations  of  man  with  man.  Yet  it 
is  true  that  the  price  of  development  is  the  struggle 
for  life.  The  road  of  evolution  is  an  uphill  road.  When 
struggle  ceases,  progress  ceases,  and  evolution  be- 
comes devolution.  Our  strength  is  the  strength  of 
the  obstacles  we  overcome.  The  living  machine, 
contrary  to  the  non-hving,  gains  power  from  the 
friction  it  begets. 

When  we  open  the  book  of  the  biological  history 
of  the  globe,  we  find,  to  begin  with,  no  force  but 
that  which  we  call  brute  force,  no  justice  but  power, 
no  crime  but  weakness,  no  law  but  the  law  of  battle. 
The  victory  is  to  the  strong  and  the  race  to  the 
swift.  And  it  is  well.  It  is  on  this  plan,  as  I  have  so 
often  said,  that  the  hfe  of  the  globe  has  come  to 
what  we  behold  it.  Man  has  come  to  his  present  es- 
tate, the  trees  in  the  forest,  the  grasses  and  flowers 
of  the  field,  the  birds  in  the  air,  the  fishes  in  the  sea, 
have  each  and  all  attained  their  present  stage  of 
138 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

development  through  the  operation  of  this  law  of 
natural  competition,  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
Though  marked  by  what  we  call  cruelty  and  in- 
justice, in  the  totality  of  its  operations  it  is  a  benef- 
icent law.  If  it  were  not  so,  how  could  the  world  of 
living  things  have  attained  its  present  develop- 
ment? If  it  were  a  malevolent  law,  would  not  life 
have  suffered  shipwreck  long  ago?  The  world  of 
living  things  and  of  non-living  still  merits  the  primal 
approval  —  "Behold,  it  is  very  good!"  Not  your 
good,  nor  my  good,  but  a  general  good,  the  good  of 
all.  Nature's  scheme,  if  we  may  say  she  has  a 
scheme,  embraces  the  totality  of  things,  and  that 
the  totality  of  things  is  good  who  but  a  born  pessi- 
mist, a  radically  negative  nature,  can  deny?  Mixed 
good  undoubtedly  it  is,  but  is  there,  or  can  there  be, 
any  other  good  in  the  universe?  Good  forever  free- 
ing itself  from  the  non-good,  or  from  the  fetters  of 
evil  —  good  to  eat,  to  drink,  to  behold,  to  live  by, 
to  die  by  —  good  for  the  body,  good  for  the  mind, 
good  for  the  soul,  good  in  time,  and  good  in  eternity? 

From  solar  systems  to  atoms  and  molecules,  the 
greater  bodies,  the  greater  forces,  prevail  over  the 
lesser,  and  yet  flowers  bloom,  and  life  is  sweet,  sweet 
for  the  minor  forms  as  well  as  for  the  major. 

Inert  matter  knows  only  the  laws  of  force.  In  the 

world  of  living  matter,  up  to  a  certain  point,  the 

same  rule  prevails.  In  the  fields  and  woods  the  more 

vigorous  plants  and  trees  run  out  the  less  vigorous. 

139 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

In  the  dryer  meadows  in  my  section  of  the  Cat- 
skills  the  orange  hawkweed  completely  crowds  out 
the  meadow  grasses;  it  plants  itself  on  every  square 
inch  of  the  surface,  and  every  four  or  five  years  the 
farmer  has  to  intervene  with  his  plow  to  turn  the 
battle  in  favor  of  the  grass  again.  In  the  gardens, 
unless  the  gardener  take  a  hand  in  the  game,  the 
weeds  choke  down  or  smother  all  his  vegetables. 
The  weeds  are  rank  with  original  sin  and  they 
easily  supplant  our  pampered  and  cultivated  cereals 
and  legumes. 

In  the  animal  world  there  are  few  exceptions  to 
the  rule  of  the  supremacy  of  power.  There  is  no 
question  of  right  or  wrong,  of  mercy  or  cruelty.  It 
is  not  cruel  or  unjust  for  the  bird  to  catch  the  in- 
sect, or  for  the  cat  to  catch  the  bird,  or  for  the  lion 
to  devour  the  lamb,  or  for  the  big  fishes  to  eat  up 
the  little  fishes.  It  is  the  rule  of  nature,  and  never  a 
question  of  right  or  wrong. 

Biological  laws  are  as  remorseless  as  physical 
laws.  The  course  of  animal  evolution  through  the 
geologic  ages  is  everywhere  marked  by  the  triumph 
of  new  and  superior  forms  over  the  old  and  in- 
ferior forms.  Among  the  lower  races  of  man,  our 
remote  savage  ancestors,  might  ruled.  The  strong 
and  prolific  tribes  supplanted  those  that  were  less 
so,  and,  among  the  nations,  up  to  our  own  day,  the 
rule  of  natural  competition,  or  survival  of  the 
fittest,  has  held  full  sway.  Those  nations  which  are 
140 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

dominant  are  so  by  virtue  of  their  superior  quali- 
ties, physical,  moral,  or  intellectual.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  might  except  in  so  far  as  this  question 
is  linked  with  the  question  of  moral  and  intellectual 
superiority. 

Is  there,  then,  no  such  thing  as  equity,  justice, 
fair  play  in  the  world?  Shall  I  seize  my  neighbor's 
farm  and  despoil  him  of  his  goods  and  chattels  be- 
cause I  am  stronger  than  he?  Shall  one  state  in- 
vade and  despoil  another,  or  seize  its  territory,  be- 
cause it  is  stronger  and  considers  itself  more  fit  to 
survive? 

The  rule  of  might,  as  I  have  said,  prevails 
throughout  the  world  of  matter  and  of  life  below 
man,  and  long  prevailed  in  pre-human  and  human 
history.  But  the  old  law  of  nature  has  been  limited 
and  qualified  by  a  new  law  which  has  come  into  the 
world  and  which  is  just  as  truly  a  biological  law  in 
its  application  to  man  as  was  the  old  law  of  might. 
I  refer  to  the  law  of  man's  moral  nature,  the  source 
of  right,  justice,  mercy.  The  progress  of  the  race 
and  of  the  nations  is  coming  more  and  more  to 
depend  upon  the  observance  of  this  law.  Without 
it  there  is  no  organization,  no  cooperation,  no  com- 
merce, no  government.  Without  it  anarchy  would 
rule,  and  our  civilization  would  crumble  and  society 
disintegrate. 

The  moral  sense  of  mankind  is  now  the  dominant 
fact  in  human  history;  the  rule  of  might  has  been 
141 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

superseded  by  the  rule  of  right.  It  is  this  sense  in 
the  civilized  world  that  has  revolted  so  over- 
whelmingly against  the  Prussian  miUtary  power  in 
precipitating  the  World  War;  and  this  conscience 
will  probably  be  so  developed  and  intensified  by 
the  useless  waste  and  cruelty  of  the  war  that  such  a 
calamity  will  never  again  befall  the  world.  Those 
nations  will  become  the  most  powerful  that  are  the 
most  just,  the  most  humane,  that  develop  in  the 
highest  degree  a  world  conscience,  and  realize  the 
most  intensely  that  the  nations  all  belong  to  one 
family,  in  which  the  good  and  evil  of  one  are  the 
good  and  evil  of  all.  What  can  the  progress  of  civ- 
ilization mean  but  the  progress  of  international 
comity,  sympathy,  cooperation,  fair-dealing;  in 
fact,  the  fullest  recognition  of  the  validity  of  the 
ethical  laws  to  which  we  hold  individuals  and  com- 
munities amenable? 

History  is  full  of  violence,  cruelty,  injustice,  and 
the  triumph  of  the  strong  over  the  weak,  wherein 
the  end  seemed  to  justify  the  means;  yet  never 
since  the  world  began  did  physical  might  alone 
make  moral  right.  The  sheriff  and  the  hangman 
have  made  the  doctrine  unpopular  among  individ- 
uals —  the  ethical  sense  of  mankind  will  in  time 
make  it  equally  unpopular  among  nations. 

Nature  is  not  moral;  primitive  biological  laws 
are  not  moral;  they  are  unmoral.  There  is  no  moral 
law  until  it  is  born  of  human  intercourse;  then  it 
142 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

becomes  more  and  more  a  biological  law,  more  and 
more  prominent  in  social  and  national  progress. 
The  law  of  the  jungle  begins  and  ends  in  the  jungle; 
when  we  translate  it  into  human  affairs,  we  must 
take  the  cruelty  of  the  jungle  out  of  it,  and  read  it 
in  terms  of  beneficent  competition.  Man  is  the 
jungle  humanized;  the  fangs  and  claws  are  drawn, 
and  the  stealthy  spring  gives  place  to  open  and 
fair  competition. 

II 
In  the  Darwinian  struggle  for  existence  there  is 
first  the  struggle  with  environment,  or  with  the  non- 
living forces  —  heat,  cold,  storm,  wind,  flood;  the 
organic  always  at  war  with  the  inorganic  out  of 
which  its  power  comes.  The  fateful  physical  and 
mechanical  forces  go  their  way  regardless  of  the 
life  that  surrounds  them  and  which  draws  its  en- 
ergy from  them.  Gravity  would  pull  down  every 
tree  and  shrub  and  every  animal  that  walks  or  flies. 
The  wind  and  the  storm  would  flatten  down  the 
flowers  and  grasses  and  grains  like  a  steam  roller, 
and  often  succeeds  in  doing  so.  See  the  timothy  and 
wheat  and  com  struggle  to  lift  themselves  again. 
Behold  how  the  trees  grip  the  rocks  and  soil,  and 
brace  themselves  against  the  wind !  This  struggle  is, 
of  course,  not  a  conscious  one.  Apart  from  the  origi- 
nal push  of  life,  it  can  all  be  explained  in  terms 
of  physics  and  chemistry.  The  bio-chemist  will  tell 
143 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

you  why  the  plant  leans  toward  the  light,  and  why 
it  rights  itself  when  pressed  down;  but  why  or  how 
matter  organizes  itself  into  the  various  living  forms 
is  a  question  before  which  natural  philosophy  is 
dumb.  Neither  chemistry  nor  physics  can  give  us 
the  secret  of  life.  The  ingenious  devices  to  secure 
cross-fertilization  among  certain  plants,  devices  for 
scattering  the  seed  among  others,  —  the  hooks,  the 
wings,  the  springs,  —  to  me  all  seem  to  imply  in- 
telligence, not  apart  from,  but  inherent  in,  the 
things  themselves.  Power  of  adaptation  —  to  take 
advantage  of  wind  and  flood,  of  solid  and  fluid  — 
is  one  of  the  mysterious  attributes  of  life.  And  yet 
we  know  that  vegetable  life  takes  advantage  of 
these  things  not,  as  we  do,  by  forethought  and 
invention,  but  by  a  mysterious  inherent  impulse. 

How  the  bee  and  the  bird  battle  with  the  wind, 
the  fish  with  the  waves  and  the  rapids,  the  fur- 
bearers  with  the  cold  and  the  snow!  how  all  living 
creatures  struggle  to  escape  or  resist  the  dissolving 
power  of  the  natural  forces! 

The  ever-present  instinct  of  fear  in  all  wild  crea- 
tures and  in  children,  and  the  quickness  with  which 
it  can  be  aroused  in  all  persons,  throw  light  upon 
the  cruder  aspects  of  this  struggle  for  existence 
which  is  common  to  all  forms  of  animal  life.  Had 
life  never  been  beset  with  perils,  we  should  have 
been  strangers  to  the  emotion  of  fear,  as  would  all 
other  creatures.  Even  the  fly  that  alights  on  my 
144. 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

paper  as  I  write  fears  my  hand.  It  is  ever  on  guard 
against  its  natural  enemies.  This  is  the  proof  of  the 
universal  struggle.  Among  the  lower  forms  the 
struggle  or  competition  of  the  fleet  with  the  slow, 
the  cunning  with  the  stupid,  the  sharp-eyed,  the 
sharp-eared,  and  the  keen  of  scent  with  those  less 
so;  of  the  miscellaneous  feeders  with  the  more 
specialized  feeders;  and,  among  mankind,  the  com- 
petition of  men  of  purpose,  of  foresight,  of  judg- 
ment, of  experience,  of  probity,  and  of  other  per- 
sonal resources,  with  men  who  are  deficient  in  these 
things;  and,  among  nations  and  peoples,  the  in- 
evitable competition  of  those  who  cherish  the  high- 
est national  ideals,  the  best-organized  governments, 
the  best  race  inheritance,  the  most  natural  resources, 
and  so  on,  with  the  less  fortunate  in  these  respects 
—  all  this  struggle  and  competition,  I  say,  is  benefi- 
cent and  on  the  road  to  progress. 

Myriads  of  different  types  of  animal  and  vege- 
table life  fit  into  the  scheme  of  organic  nature  with" 
out  conflict  or  hindrance,  but  when  there  is  con- 
flict, the  strong  prevail.  The  small  and  the  gigantic, 
the  feeble  and  the  mighty,  the  timid  and  the  bold, 
the  frail  and  the  robust  —  birds,  insects,  mice, 
squirrels,  cattle  —  exist  in  the  same  landscape  and 
all  prosper.  Only  when  there  is  rivalry  do  the  feeble 
go  to  the  wall,  which  means  only  that  their  numbers 
are  kept  down.  The  cats  do  not  exterminate  the 
mice  and  rats,  nor  do  the  hawks  and  owls  extermi- 
145 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

nate  tlie  other  birds;  they  are  a  natural  check  on 
their  undue  increase.  Nature's  checks  and  balances 
are  all  important.  When  species  subsist  upon  spe- 
cies, as  weasels  upon  rodents  and  hawks  upon  other 
birds,  there  seems  to  be  some  law  that  keeps  the 
bloodthirsty  in  check.  Why  should  there  be  so  few 
weasels,  since  they  appear  as  prolific  as  their  vic- 
tims? Why  so  few  pigeon  hawks,  since  the  hawks 
have  no  natural  enemies,  while  the  trees  swarm  with 
jBnches  and  robins? 

The  conflicting  interests  in  Nature  sooner  or 
later  adjust  themselves;  her  checks  and  balances 
bring  about  her  equilibrium.  In  vegetation  rivalries 
and  antagonisms  bring  about  adaptations.  The 
mosses  and  the  ferns  and  the  tender  wood  plants 
grow  beneath  the  oaks  and  the  pines  and  are 
favored  by  the  shade  and  protection  which  the 
latter  afford  them.  The  farmer's  seeding  of  grass 
and  clover  takes  better  under  the  shade  of  the  oats 
than  it  would  upon  the  naked  ground.  In  Africa 
some  species  of  flesh-eaters  live  upon  the  leavings 
of  larger  and  stronger  species,  and  in  the  tropics 
certain  birds  become  benefactors  of  the  cattle  by 
preying  upon  the  insects  that  pester  them.  Fabre 
tells  of  certain  insect  hosts  that  blmdly  favor  the 
parasites  that  destroy  them.  The  scheme  has 
worked  itself  out  that  way  and  Nature  is  satisfied. 
Victim  or  victor,  host  or  parasite,  it  is  all  one  to  her. 
Life  goes  on,  and  all  forms  of  it  are  hers. 
146 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  the  wild  plants  run  out  the 
cultivated  ones  —  the  latter  are  the  result  of  arti- 
ficial selection.  No  favor  has  been  shown  the  wild 
ones,  and  hence  only  the  most  vigorous  have  sur- 
vived. The  cultivated  plants  always  have  a  greater 
burden  to  bear  than  the  wild  ones,  and  man  helps 
them  to  bear  it,  or,  rather,  he  saddles  it  upon  them. 
The  cultivated  races  of  man  have  burdens  to  bear 
also,  much  greater  than  the  savage  tribes,  but  this 
is  more  than  made  up  to  them  by  their  superior 
brain  power,  which  brain  power  again  has  come 
about  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Wild  tribes  have 
also  been  under  the  discipline  of  natural  selection, 
but  by  reason  of  some  obscure  factors  of  race  or 
climate  or  geography  they  have  not  profited  as 
have  the  European  and  Asiatic  races.  Their  moral 
natures  are  more  rudimentary. 

Doubtless  some  obscure  or  unknown  factors  in 
the  original  germ-cells,  far  back  in  biological  times, 
caused  the  divergence  and  splitting-up  of  animal 
forms,  and  gave  to  one  an  impulse  that  carried  it 
higher  in  the  scale  of  development  than  its  fellows, 
just  as  the  same  thing  happens  in  human  families 
in  our  own  times.  Why  some  creatures  are  higher 
and  some  are  lower,  why  some  eventuated  in  the 
bird  and  some  in  toad  and  frog  and  snake  and 
lizard,  is  one  of  the  mysteries.  In  seeking  the  ex- 
planation of  these  things  on  natural  grounds  we 
are  compelled  to  resort  to  the  fertile  expedient  of 
147 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

conjecture,  and  pack  the  germ  with  many  possibili- 
ties, each  one  depending  for  its  development  upon 
chance  occurrence  or  conditions. 

Besides  this  struggle  with  the  environment  there 
is  the  struggle  of  individuals  and  of  species  with 
one  another  —  of  oak  with  oak,  of  beech  with 
beech,  of  plant  with  its  kind,  for  the  moisture  and 
nutriment  in  the  soil;  of  robin  with  robin  for  in- 
sects and  fruit,  of  fox  with  fox  for  mice  and  rabbits, 
and  of  lion  with  lion  for  antelope  and  zebra.  I  say 
"struggle,"  but  it  is  rarely  struggle  in  the  sense  of 
strife  or  battle,  but  in  the  sense  of  natural  com- 
petition —  the  victory  is  to  the  most  lucky  and  the 
most  vigorous  —  the  sharpest  eye,  the  quickest 
ear,  the  most  nimble  foot;  and  those  most  favored 
by  fortune  win. 

Under  the  law  of  variation  some  individuals 
have  a  fuller  endowment  of  vital  energy  than  others; 
under  a  severe  strain  and  trial  of  whatever  kind 
the  favored  ones  will  survive,  while  the  others  per- 
ish. Some  men,  some  animals,  can  endure  more 
hardships  than  others;  under  the  same  conditions 
all  will  not  starve  or  freeze  or  fall  exhausted  by  the 
wayside  at  the  same  time.  In  the  vegetable  world 
the  same  inequality  in  the  gift  of  life  exists,  though 
not  in  the  same  degree.  Some  seeds  will  lie  dor- 
mant in  the  soil  longer  than  others  of  the  same  kind, 
and  some  kinds  longer  than  others.  Some  seeds  will 
not  sprout  after  the  second  year,  but  a  few  may 
148 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

sprout  after  the  third  or  even  the  fourth  year.  The 
stream  of  Ufe  is  not  of  uniform  depth  and  fullness; 
it  is  shallow  in  some  places,  and  deep  in  others,  as  re- 
gards both  species  and  individuals.  In  the  natural 
competition  which  goes  on  all  around  us,  the  strong- 
est, the  fittest,  win  in  the  game,  not  necessarily  by 
violence,  but  because,  apart  from  the  role  played 
by  chance,  they  carry  more  pounds  of  vital  pressure. 
Not  all  acorns  become  oaks,  probably  not  one  in 
thousands;  not  all  bird's  eggs  become  birds;  occa- 
sionally one  egg  in  the  nest  does  not  hatch,  prob- 
ably because  of  some  defect  in  fertilization.  Some 
nests  are  torn  out  of  the  trees  by  storms,  or  are 
robbed  by  crows  or  jays  or  squirrels;  they  were  not 
well  hidden.  A  large  percentage  of  nests  on  the 
ground  is  destroyed  by  night  prowlers  or  by  day 
prowlers;  chance  again  plays  a  great  part  here. 
Only  a  small  fraction  of  the  spawn  of  fishes  hatches, 
and  a  still  smaller  percentage  of  the  hatched  ever 
reaches  maturity.  Fortune,  good  or  bad,  plays  a 
great  part  with  all  forms  of  life.  The  acorn  that 
becomes  an  oak  owes  much  to  chance  —  chance  of 
position  and  soil,  and  chance  of  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  woods  and  fields.  Falling  trees  or  branches,  or 
the  foot  of  a  passing  animal,  may  crush  or  deform  it, 
or  a  squirrel  or  a  raccoon  devour  it.  Barring  these 
accidents,  it  owes,  or  may  owe,  not  a  little  to  its 
inherent  vitality  —  to  its  real  oakhood. 

The  natural  competition,   or  the  struggle   for 
149 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

existence  among  mankind,  is  of  similar  character, 
though  on  the  whole  less  fortuitous.  Cooperation, 
knowledge,  altruism,  have  done  much  to  eliminate 
the  element  of  chance.  An  acorn  becomes  an  oak 
where  ten  thousand  other  acorns  fail,  mainly  by 
luck,  while  the  child  becomes  the  man  mainly 
through  the  care  and  nurture  of  his  parents  and  of 
the  community  in  which  he  lives,  but  he  reaches  a 
position  of  power  and  prominence  largely  through 
bis  inherent  capabilities.  Fortune  plays  a  part  here 
also,  as  it  did  with  Lincoln  and  Lee  and  Grant,  but 
these  men  all  had  the  native  endowment  upon  which 
Fortune  could  build. 

In  the  natural  competition  that  goes  on  in  every 
town  and  city,  the  success  of  one  man  over  another 
is  not,  as  a  rule,  the  result  of  violence  or  wrong;  men 
of  high  purpose  and  character  in  business  and  pro- 
fessional life  add  to  the  positive  wealth  and  well- 
being  of  all;  they  often  lift  the  whole  community  to 
a  higher  and  better  standard  of  living;  the  unfit 
profit  by  the  achievements  of  the  fit.  The  men  who 
have  added  to  the  wealth  and  well-being  of  this 
country  could  be  counted  by  the  thousands.  It  is 
also  true  that  the  men  who  have  accumulated  their 
millions  at  the  expense  of  others,  by  fraud  and  chi- 
canery, or  have  diverted  the  earnings  of  others  into 
their  own  coffers,  could  be  counted  by  the  thou- 
sands. It  is  this  class  of  men  who  make  the  poor 
poorer.  But  did  the  achievements  of  such  men  as 
150 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

the  late  James  J.  Hill  make  the  poor  poorer?  Such 
men  add  enormously  to  the  wealth  of  the  nation. 

With  all  its  discounts  and  set-backs,  the  natural 
struggle  for  existence  has  carried  the  whole  race  for- 
ward. Even  business  competition  may  be  entirely 
beneficent.  Two  men  open  shops  or  houses  in  simi- 
lar lines  in  the  same  town  and  one  outstrips  the 
other.  Maybe  his  location  is  the  better;  one  side  of  a 
street  may  be  more  favorable  to  success  than  the 
other  side.  Maybe  he  is  more  affable  in  manner, 
more  thorough  in  his  methods,  more  accommodat- 
ing, more  fair-minded,  of  sounder  judgment  —  in 
fact,  the  better  man  in  a  beneficent  sense. 

On  a  broad  view,  throughout  any  country,  this 
will  be  found  to  be  true :  success  in  business,  in  the 
professions,  on  the  farm,  in  the  manufactory,  comes 
to  those  who  deserve  it.  It  cannot  be  otherwise.  The 
world  is  thus  made.  Among  the  nations  the  same 
rule  holds.  England  has  earned  all  the  power  she  has 
got.  She  is  endowed  with  the  gift  of  empire.  Solid 
merit  alone  tells  in  the  long  run,  as  well  among 
nations  as  among  individual  men.  The  worth  of 
France  rests  upon  solid  qualities.  The  worth  of 
Germany  is  inherent  in  the  character  of  her  people. 
That  she  has  run  to  Krupp  guns  and  Kaiserism  dur- 
ing these  later  generations,  and  has  coveted  the 
land  and  the  gold  of  her  neighbors,  is  one  of  those 
human  calamities  analogous  to  tornadoes  and 
earthquakes. 

151 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

In  the  course  of  modern  history,  race  supplants 
race,  not  so  much  by  force  of  arms  as  by  force  of 
brain.  The  Europeans  know  how  to  utilize  the  natu- 
ral forces  and  make  the  stars  fight  on  their  side.  So 
far  as  they  have  done  it  by  wars  of  conquest,  they 
have  violated  the  great  moral  law  and  the  law  of 
natural  competition.  All  wars  of  conquest  by  civi- 
lized nations  are  wicked  wars.  They  are  becoming 
more  and  more  odious  to  mankind,  and  are  bound 
to  become  still  more  so,  till  they  cease  entirely.  A 
century  ago  the  conduct  of  Germany  in  the  recent 
war  would  have  shocked  mankind  far  less  than  it 
has  to-day.  A  century  hence  such  an  exhibition  of 
the  rule  of  the  jungle  among  civilized  peoples  will  be 
impossible.  If  Germany  could  ever  come  to  be  the 
dominant  power  in  Europe,  it  would  be  through  the 
law  of  natural  competition.  Her  superior  eflBciency 
in  the  arts  of  peace,  could  alone  give  her  the  vic- 
tory. It  would  have  given  her  the  victory  in  her  own 
age  had  she  been  contented  with  its  slow  but  sure 
operation. 

in 

The  question  of  right  and  wrong  must  have 
emerged,  so  as  to  become  a  factor  in  the  evolution 
of  human  society,  very  slowly  —  how  slowly,  we 
can  never  know.  But  it  did  emerge,  and  is  still 
emerging  more  and  more;  first  probably  in  the  deal- 
ing of  man  with  man,  then  in  the  dealing  of  families 
152 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

with  other  families.  In  the  deaUng  of  tribes  with 
tribes  in  prehistoric  times,  the  question  of  right  and 
wrong  played  probably  little  or  no  part;  might  alone 
settled  matters.  In  what  we  call  the  pagan  world, 
among  the  early  Egyptians,  Hebrews,  Greeks,  and 
Romans,  the  law  of  might  in  the  dealings  of  one  na- 
tion with  another  prevailed,  and  up  to  our  own 
time  the  standard  of  international  morality  has 
been,  and  still  is,  far  below  the  standard  among  in- 
dividuals and  neighborhood  communities.  Even  in 
the  United  States  there  is  a  crying  want  of  public 
conscience.  The  people  are  preyed  upon  by  men 
they  elect  to  serve  them.  The  men  or  corporations 
that  take  pleasure  and  satisfaction  in  serving  the 
public  well  and  reasonably,  or  in  giving  a  quid  pro 
quo,  are  rare.  Men  who  are  blameless  in  their  per- 
sonal dealings  with  one  another  will,  when  formed 
into  a  board  of  directors  or  trustees,  rob  railroads, 
and  squander  money  not  their  own.  Capitalists  will 
band  together  to  rob  the  state  through  the  con- 
struction of  sham  highways  or  flimsy  public  build- 
ings. A  public  conscience  is  among  all  peoples  of 
slow  growth,  and  an  international  conscience  is  still 
slower.  What  part  has  it  played  in  the  history  of 
Europe?  Surely  a  very  minor  part.  The  Golden  Rule 
has  been  turned  into  an  iron  rule  of  might  over 
right  times  without  number,  by  all  the  nations  re- 
cently engaged  in  war. 

As  man's  moral  consciousness  has  developed,  the 
153 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

question  of  right  and  wrong  has,  of  course,  come 
more  and  more  to  the  front;  his  relations  to  his  fel- 
lows, his  sense  of  justice,  of  truth,  of  fair  deahng, 
have  occupied  him  more  and  more.  His  savage  in- 
stincts have  been  held  more  and  more  in  check.  The 
cooperation  and  sympathy  and  good-will  which 
have  brought  about  his  present  civilization  would 
have  been  possible  on  no  other  terms.  Without  a 
sense  of  justice,  of  love  of  truth,  of  ideal  right, 
where  should  we  have  been  to-day?  The  fittest  to 
survive  among  mankind  were  those  races  that  had 
the  moral  consciousness  most  fully  developed.  This 
gave  a  might  which  led  to  a  permanent  supremacy 
—  a  beneficent  might.  A  malevolent  might  is  one 
that  is  founded  upon  superior  brute  or  material 
strength  alone.  The  law  of  the  jungle  or  of  the  tor- 
nado or  of  the  avalanche,  introduced  into  human 
affairs  and  unchecked  by  the  law  of  man's  moral 
nature,  leads  to  wars  of  conquest,  as  it  did  to  the 
World  War. 

IV 

The  expounders  of  the  benefits  of  war  write  and 
speak  about  it  as  if  it  were  some  system  of  hygiene 
or  medicine  or  gymnastic  training  that  a  people 
could  practice  in  and  of  themselves;  whereas  wars 
of  conquest  do  not  begin  and  end  at  home.  There 
are  two  parties  to  such  a  war.  If  it  is  a  benefit  to  the 
victors,  what  is  it  to  the  defeated?  I  am  speaking,  of 
154 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

course,  of  material  benefits.  The  benefits  that  come 
from  heroism  and  self-denial  are  of  another  order. 
If  the  lamb  inside  the  lion  is  a  benefit  to  the  lion, 
what  is  it  to  the  lamb?  If  Germany  reaped  advan- 
tage by  her  invasion  of  Belgium,  what  did  Belgium 
reap?  But  the  fate  of  the  other  party  is  the  last 
question  that  would  ever  occur  to  the  Prussian 
military  mind.  If  the  doctrine  of  f rightfulness  began 
and  ended  at  home,  the  world  could  not  object.  Be- 
cause burned  cities  in  modern  times  rise  from  their 
ashes  in  new  beauty  and  power,  shall  we  therefore 
seek  to  rejuvenate  our  cities  by  applying  a  match  to 
them?  Cities  rise  from  their  ashes  because  of  their 
stored-up  wealth  and  because  of  the  arteries  of 
commerce  and  industry  that  flow  through  them. 
Fire  does  not  rejuvenate  a  dead  tree  nor  a  dead  city, 
nor  does  war  rejuvenate  a  people  who  are  in  a  state 
of  mortal  ripening.  It  did  not  rejuvenate  Rome  in 
ancient  times,  nor  Spain  in  modem  times,  and  it 
does  not  appear  to  be  rejuvenating  Mexico  very 
fast,  nor  any  of  the  South  American  republics.  All 
depends  upon  the  stock  you  are  trying  to  rejuve- 
nate. 

Lord  Roberts  is  quoted  as  saying,  just  before  his 
death,  that  war  is  necessary  and  salutary,  and  that 
it  is  the  only  national  tonic  that  can  be  prescribed 
when  peace  begets  degeneracy  in  an  over-civilized 
people.  He  looked  upon  Germany  as  the  greatest 
friend  of  the  Allies  when  she  declared  war  against 
1^5 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

them.  But  could  there  be  any  better  proof  that 
peace  had  not  begotten  degeneracy  in  England  or 
France  or  Russia  than  the  promptness  with  which 
these  countries  took  up  the  challenge  of  Prussian 
militarism,  and  the  fortitude  and  self-denial  with 
which  they  gave  it  blow  for  blow? 

Under  the  smiling  face  of  peace,  when  the  de- 
mand is  made,  the  heroic  element  is  always  found  to 
be  slumbering.  Every  day,  in  the  industrial  and 
scientific  fields,  men  prove  themselves  the  same 
heroes  that  they  do  on  the  field  of  battle,  and  they 
prove  it  without  the  excitement  and  stimulus  that 
war  gives;  and  women  prove  it  in  times  of  peace  and 
times  of  war. 

The  gospel  of  war  as  a  national  tonic  in  our  time 
ia  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  Are  we  to  get  up  a  war  off- 
hand because  we  think  the  nations  need  that  kind 
of  medicine?  Blood-letting  is  a  strange  remedy  for 
the  depleted  condition  to  which  Lord  Roberts  re- 
fers. War  sets  up  the  victorious  nation,  but  how 
about  the  defeated  one?  Have  the  defeats  of  Spain 
in  the  past  two  or  three  hundred  years  set  her 
up?  Have  the  defeats  of  Turkey  redounded  to  her 
glory  and  power?  Little  doubt  that  this  World 
War  will  bear  fruit,  but  it  will  be  a  kind  of  fruit 
the  combatant  did  not  seek  or  expect. 

The  conclusion,  then,  that  I  arrive  at  is  that  a 
new  rule  of  conduct  for  nations  as  for  individuals,  a 
new  biological  law,  has  come  into  being  through 
156 


THE  PRICE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

man's  moral  nature,  his  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 
There  is  no  question  of  right  or  of  wrong  in  the 
world  of  living  things  below  man,  and  we  can  per- 
suade ourselves  that  there  is  only  by  putting  our- 
selves in  the  place  of  the  struggling  animal  forces. 
And  there  is  no  question  of  right  and  of  wrong  in  the 
human  world  till  man's  consciousness  of  this  differ- 
ence has  begun  to  dawn.  In  our  day  this  conscious- 
ness is  suflSciently  developed  to  become  the  ruling 
factor  in  the  conduct  of  national  and  international 
affairs,  and  must  very  soon  put  an  end  to  all  armed 
human  conflicts.  In  saying  this  I  am  not  exploit- 
ing a  theory;  I  am  trying  to  state  an  indisputable 
scientific  fact. 


X 

TOOTH  AND  CLAW 
I 

TO  deny  that  Nature  is  cruel,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  term,  were,  to  the  majority  of  persons, 
like  denying  that  blood  is  red,  or  that  fire  will  burn. 
We  use  the  term  "cruel"  loosely,  and  interpret  the 
ways  of  Nature  in  terms  of  our  own  psychology. 
'  If  we  are  torn  by  thorns  or  stung  by  nettles  or 
bitten  by  snakes  or  suffer  from  frost-bites  or  sun- 
stroke, we  accuse  Nature  of  cruelty,  always  assum- 
ing, in  our  conceit,  that  we  are  the  lords  of  creation, 
and  that  things  were  made  especially  for  us.  We 
have  no  venomous  snake  that  will  bite  us  except  in 
self-defense,  nor  any  bee  that  will  sting  us  except  on 
the  same  grounds. 

Even  Darwin,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Hooker,  re- 
fers to  the  "clumsy,  wasteful,  blundering,  slow,  and 
horribly  cruel  works  of  Nature,"  thus  treating  the 
All- Mother  with  scant  respect. 

Amiel  cannot  say,  as  he  does  say,  that  "Nature  is 
unjust  and  shameless,  without  probity  and  without 
faith,"  unless  he  makes  her  over  into  man  or  invests 
her  with  the  human  consciousness.  Even  the  good 
Emerson  accuses  Nature  of  being  unscrupulous. 
Did  the  Concord  philosopher  expect  storms  and 
158 


TOOTH  AND  CLAW 

frost  and  blight  and  thunderbolts  to  have  scruples? 
Did  he  expect  thorns  and  nettles  and  fleas  and 
potato-bugs  and  grasshoppers  and  disease-germs  to 
consider  their  ways? 

A  well-known  philosopher  and  writer.  Professor 
Jacks,  of  Manchester  College,  Oxford,  in  writing 
upon  "Our  Common  Foe,"  takes  it  for  granted  at 
the  outset  that  Nature  is  cruel,  and,  moreover,  that 
she  is  as  cruel  as  the  Germans  showed  themselves  to 
be  in  the  crudest  of  all  wars.  "There  is  a  cruelty  in 
Nature,"  he  says,  "and  it  has  been  reserved  for  our 
age  to  realize  how  immense  is  its  range  and  how  ap- 
palling its  effects";  we  realize  it,  he  says,  when  we 
read  the  story  of  Germany's  treatment  of  her  pris- 
oners, the  story  of  her  submarines,  and  her  conduct 
toward  unoffending  non-combatants  generally. 

What  worse  thing  could  be  said  about  Nature 
than  that  she  is  as  bad  as  the  Germans?  It  almost 
makes  us  suspect  treachery  and  death  in  her  sum- 
mer breezes  and  her  sunshine.  Dr.  Jacks  seeks  to 
justify  his  charge  by  averring  that  man  is  a  part  of 
Nature  and  that  in  him  are  summarized  her  good 
and  her  evil  qualities.  Of  course,  in  a  certain  sense 
this  is  true.  But  in  seeking  to  solve  the  problems  of 
his  life,  man  separates  himself  from  the  rest  of  Na- 
ture and  holds  himself  amenable  to  standards  of 
conduct  that  Ife  does  not  apply  to  the  orders  below 
him.  He  regards  himself  as  a  superior  being.  He  is  a 
part  of  Nature,  but  of  an  emancipated  and  regener- 
159 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

«ited  Nature.  He  is  one  with  the  beasts  of  the  field 
and  the  fowls  of  the  air  only  in  his  purely  animal 
aspects.  As  a  moral  and  spiritual  being  with  a  sense 
of  truth  and  justice,  of  mercy  and  forgiveness,  he 
stands  on  a  higher  plane.  He  cannot  justify  his  con- 
duct by  an  appeal  to  brute  nature  or  to  biological 
laws.  His  sins  are  more  scarlet  and  his  virtues  more 
divine  than  those  of  his  unmoral  and  unreasoning 
brute  neighbors.  His  consciousness  of  right  and 
wrong  is  the  touchstone  by  which  all  his  deeds  are 
to  be  tried. 

Tennyson's  agonizing  line  "Nature  red  in  tooth 
and  claw"  tends,  especially  in  the  days  of  world- 
wide human  carnage,  to  make  one  see  the  whole 
animal  kingdom  with  blood-dripping  claws  and 
jaws.  But  it  is  not  so.  At  its  worst  this  "tooth  and 
claw"  business  applies  only  to  a  fraction  of  wild 
life.  The  vast  army  of  the  seed-eaters,  the  plant- 
eaters,  the  fruit-eaters,  upon  which  the  flesh-eaters 
subsist,  and  which  they  help  keep  in  check,  is 
greatly  in  the  ascendancy. 

The  whole  truth  of  this  matter  of  the  cruelty  of 
Nature  may  be  put  in  a  nutshell :  Nature  as  seen  in 
animal  life  is  sanguinary,  but  only  man  is  cruel. 
Only  man  deliberately  and  intentionally  inflicts 
pain;  only  man  tortures  his  victims,  and  takes 
pleasure  in  their  agony.  No  other  creature  goes  out 
of  its  way  to  inflict  suffering;  no  other  creature  acts 
from  the  motive  of  cruelty  or  the  will  to  give  pain. 
160 


TOOTH  AND  CLAW 

Nature  kills,  but  does  not  torture.  The  biological 
ijlaws  are  neither  human  nor  inhuman;  they  are  un- 
human.  If  in  following  the  rule  that  might  makes 
right,  the  Germans  sought  justification  by  an  ap- 
peal to  biological  laws,  they  fell  below  the  beasts 
of  the  fields,  because  they  are  moral  beings,  and 
know  good  from  evil. 

Biological  laws  are  not  concerned  about  the  moral 
law.  Not  till  we  reach  man's  moral  nature  does  this 
law  have  any  validity;  then  it  becomes  a  biological 
law,  because  it  has  survival  value.  Could  the  race  of 
man  ever  have  developed  as  we  now  see  it  without 
the  conceptions  of  right  and  justice  and  the  spirit  of 
mutual  helpfulness?  As  time  passes,  other  things 
being  equal,  the  most  righteous  and  humanitarian 
nation  will  be  the  most  powerful  and  the  most  pro- 
gressive. The  great  strength  of  the  Allied  cause  in 
the  World  War  was  that  it  was  founded  upon  an 
ideal  conception  of  international  justice  and  com- 
ity. President  Wilson  set  this  forth  in  such  wonder- 
ful completeness  that  it  will  shine  in  our  political 
firmament  for  all  time  like  a  star  of  the  first  magni- 
tude. And  the  weakness  of  the  German  cause  was 
that  it  was  based  upon  the  spirit  and  the  aims  of  the 
pirate  and  the  highwayman. 

When  we  speak  of  Nature's  cruelty  we  are  ob- 
sessed with  the  idea  that  blood  and  death  necessa- 
rily mean  cruelty,  whereas  cruelty,  as  I  have  said, 
means  an  intentional  infliction  of  pain  or  suffering. 
161 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Is  the  surgeon  cruel  when  he  performs  an  operation? 
Do  our  own  carnivorous  habits  imply  cruelty?  The 
slaughter-house  is  not  a  pleasant  object  to  contem- 
plate; the  sight  of  blood  disturbs  most  of  us;  its 
sight  and  smell  excite  even  the  unreasoning  brutes. 
But  it  is  the  wanton  shedding  of  blood  that  reacts 
unfavorably  upon  ourselves,  and  makes  us  indiffer- 
ent to  the  suffering  which  blood  so  often  implies. 
Life  is  a  wonderful  and  precious  gift,  and  we  do  not 
like  to  see  it  wantonly  destroyed. 

Professor  Jacks  speaks  of  "the  hot,  foul  breath  of 
Nature's  cruelty,"  a  sentence  mild  enough  when 
applied  to  the  Germans,  but  not  justified  when  ap- 
plied to  universal  Nature.  We  can  hardly  accuse  the 
laws  of  matter  and  force  of  being  cruel  when  they 
destroy  us;  if  they  were  not  true  to  themselves,  wliat 
permanence  would  there  be  to  life  or  to  anything 
else?  Fire  and  flood,  the  earthquake  and  the  tor- 
nado, cause  pain  and  death,  gravity  will  crush  us  as 
soon  as  sustain  us,  but  these  forces  are  not  cruel,  be- 
cause there  is  no  will  to  inflict  suffering;  they  are  a 
part  of  the  system  of  things  upon  which  our  life  and 
well-being  depend. 

Nature,  in  the  action  of  her  mechanical  and 
chemical  forces  as  they  go  their  way  about  us,  is,  as  I 
have  so  often  said,  apparently  as  indifferent  to  man 
as  to  all  other  forms  of  life,  but,  to  speak  in  the 
same  terms  of  our  human  experience,  something 
must  have  been  solicitous  about  man  or  he  would 
162 


TOOTH  AND  CLAW 

not  be  here  in  a  world  so  well  suited  to  his  develop- 
ment and  well-being.  In  the  conflict  of  forces  he  has 
had  to  take  his  chances  with  other  forms  of  life,  but 
his  powers  of  adaptation  and  invention  far  surpass 
those  of  all  other  creatures.  Not  an  atom,  not  a  peb- 
ble, will  turn  aside  to  save  him  from  destruction. 
Unrelenting  and  unpitying  Nature  is  the  school  in 
which  his  powers  have  been  developed,  and  for  him 
to  call  Nature  "cruel"  in  her  treatment  of  him  is 
for  a  child  to  upbraid  the  parent  whose  guidance 
and  discipline  foster  and  safeguard  the  coming  man. 
Could  man  have  become  man  on  any  other  terms? 

Love  is  creation's  final  law,  though  Tennyson 
seems  to  doubt  it  when  he  sees  Nature  "  red  in  tooth 
and  claw."  But  tooth  and  claw  do  not  necessarily 
imply  cruelty,  since  the  crudest  of  all  animals  — 
man  —  has  them  not;  they  imply  the  dependence  of 
one  form  of  life  upon  another  form,  and  are  associ- 
ated in  our  minds  with  that  most  heinous  of  all 
crimes,  murder.  It  is  Nature's  seeming  indiffer- 
ence to  life  which  causes  us  to  charge  her  with  cru- 
elty. Our  minds  can  take  in  but  a  fraction  of  the 
total  scheme  of  things,  and  what  we  do  take  in  we 
make  a  personal  application  of  to  ourselves.  We 
humanize  when  we  should  generalize. 

The  Germans  willfully  turned  their  backs  upon 
the  natural  biological  law  of  righteousness  or  right- 
ness,  and  their  punishment  has  been  swift  and  ade- 
quate. They  made  a  religion  of  cruelty,  as  man 
163 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

alone  has  exhibited  it,  and  cultivated  the  will  to 
destroy  and  defame  till  mankind,  with  one  accord, 
bestowed  upon  them  their  ancestral  name,  the 
Huns.  They  went  forth  to  bum  and  pillage  anc? 
murder,  and,  so  far  as  lay  in  their  power,  to  destroy 
the  very  earth  of  the  peoples  they  sought  to  con- 
quer. They  summoned  to  their  aid  all  the  diabolical 
forces  of  which  chemistry  is  capable,  and  if  they 
could  have  controlled  the  seismic  and  meteorologi- 
cal forces  as  well,  who  doubts  that  they  would  have 
made  a  desert,  blackened  with  fire  and  torn  by 
earthquakes,  where  dwell  the  nations  that  opposed 
them.'' 

The  spirit  they  showed  in  the  World  War,  and 
the  nefarious  crimes  of  which  they  were  guilty,  make 
it  a  serious  question  whether  or  not  they  should  not 
be  forever  cast  out  from  the  family  of  civilized  na- 
tions; whether,  indeed,  they  should  not  be  com- 
pletely wiped  oflF  the  map  as  a  nation,  and  their 
power  for  further  evil  forever  destroyed. 

"There  is  no  place  in  the  world  of  the  future," 
says  Dr.  Jacks,  "for  a  people  whose  policy  is  tainted 
by  the  instinct  for  cruelty." 

If  Nature  were  as  cruel  as  the  Germans  are,  if  the 
same  lust  for  blood  and  suffering  had  run  in  her 
veins,  if  she  had,  in  the  same  spirit  of  riot  and  wan- 
tonness, destroyed  her  own  creatures  and  laid  waste 
her  own  provinces,  would  you  or  I,  or  any  one  else, 
have  been  here  to  pass  judgment  upon  her  doings? 
164 


TOOTH  AND  CLAW 

There  is  blood  and  death  in  the  jungle,  but  no 
lust  of  pain;  but  in  the  German  prisons,  and  in  the 
path  of  Germany's  armies,  there  was  the  deliberate 
infliction  of  suffering  and  agony  for  their  own  sakes, 
so  that  for  generations  to  come  the  name  of  Ger 
many  will  stand  for  all  that  is  selfish,  cruel,  un- 
chivalrous,  ignoble,  insulting,  and  bestial  in  human 
history.  The  Prussian  officer  spat  in  the  face  of  his 
prisoners  of  a  like  rank,  and  followed  this  with  in- 
sulting epithets  and  blows,  seeking  in  every  way  to 
bring  them  down  to  his  own  bestial  level.  The  Prus- 
sian nurse  brought  to  a  wounded  British  soldier  the 
glass  of  water  he  begged  for,  held  it  close  to  his  face 
then  poured  it  on  the  ground,  handing  him  the 
empty  glass. 

II 

Nature  has  an  anaesthetic  of  her  own  which  she 
uses  in  taking  life.  The  carnivorous  animals  inflict 
far  less  pain  than  appearances  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate. Tooth  and  claw  usually  overwhelm  by  a  sud- 
den blow,  and  sudden  blows  benumb  and  paralyze- 
Violence  in  this  light  is  the  handmaiden  of  Mercy 
If  the  surgeon  could  perform  his  operations  in  the 
same  sudden  and  violent  manner,  an  anaesthetic 
would  rarely  be  needed.  Livingstone  was  conscious 
of  but  little  pain  when  in  the  jaws  of  a  lion,  and  its 
prey  no  doubt  feels  as  little.  The  human  criminal, 
electrocuted  or  hung  or  beheaded,  probably  experi- 
165 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

ences  but  little  physical  suffering.  Any  one  whose 
life  has  been  suddenly  imperiled  by  a  railway  or  a 
runaway  accident  knows  how  blessed  is  the  blank- 
ness  which  comes  over  his  mind  at  the  most  critical 
moment;  the  suddenness  and  intensity  of  his  alarm 
blots  out  consciousness,  and  he  retains  no  memory 
of  just  what  happened.  The  soldier  in  battle  may  be 
seriously  or  fatally  wounded  and  not  be  aware  of  it 
till  some  time  afterward.  A  crushing  or  tearing 
blow  disrupts  the  machinery  of  sensation.  It  is  only 
when  we  put  ourselves  in  the  place  of  the  mouse 
with  which  the  cat  is  playing  that  we  pity  it;  it  does 
not  experience  the  agony  we  should  feel  under  like 
conditions;  it  is  usually  un wounded;  it  does  not 
know  what  awaits  it  and  its  comparative  freedom 
of  movement  soothes  its  alarm. 

Dr.  Jacks  speaks  of  the  bloody  work  of  the  strug- 
gle for  existence,  but  the  struggle  for  existence  is 
largely  a  bloodless  struggle  of  adaptation.  Through 
it,  every  creature  sooner  or  later  finds  its  place,  finds 
where  it  fits  into  the  scheme  of  things.  Through  it 
the  mouse  finds  its  place,  and  the  lion  its,  and  man 
has  found  his.  Living  bodies  are  not  ready-made,  so 
to  speak,  like  the  parts  of  machinery;  they  are  con- 
stantly in  the  making,  and  their  making  is  a  process 
of  transformation.  The  horse,  as  we  know  him,  was 
millions  of  years  in  the  making;  so  was  the  elephant; 
so  was  man;  so  was  every  other  form  of  life.  The 
struggle  for  existence  as  a  whole  is  cruel  only  so  far 
166 


TOOTH  AND  CLAW 

as  all  discipline  and  all  insensible  modifications  and 
adaptations  under  the  pressure  of  environment  are 
cruel;  it  is  good  in  the  guise  of  evil;  it  is  the  stem 
beneficence  of  impartial  law.  The  greater  the  power 
of  adaptation,  the  more  fit  is  the  animal  or  plant  to 
survive,  and  this  power  of  adaptation  is  mainly 
what  distinguishes  living  bodies  from  non-living. 
Inanimate  bodies  tend  to  adjust  themselves  to  one 
another  through  mechanical  laws;  animate  bodies 
tend  to  adapt  themselves  to  one  another  and  to 
their  environment  through  vital  law. 

The  struggle  for  existence  is  for  the  most  part  a 
struggle  with  inanimate  nature  —  with  climate,  soil, 
wind,  flood.  A  peaceful  struggle  is  going  on  all 
around  us  at  all  times,  among  men  as  among  ani- 
mals and  plants:  a  struggle  to  live,  to  compel  Nature 
to  yield  us  the  things  needed  for  our  lives.  It  is  not 
often  competition  —  an  effort  to  win  what  another 
must  lose;  it  is  an  effort  to  seize  and  appropriate  the 
elements  that  all  may  have  on  equal  terms,  by  the 
exercise  of  strength,  industry,  wit,  prudence.  Life  is 
predaceous  only  to  a  limited  extent.  In  the  wilds,  in 
the  jungle,  one  form  devours  another  form,  but  na- 
ture compensates.  A  fuller  measure  of  life  is  given  to 
those  forms  that  are  the  prey  of  other  forms;  they 
are  more  prolific.  The  rats  and  mice  are  vastly  more 
prolific  than  the  weasels  or  the  owls  that  feed  upon 
them;  the  rabbits  have  ten  young  to  one  of  their 
enemy,  the  fox;  the  lesser  birds  greatly  outnumber 
167 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

the  hawks;  the  little  fishes  that  are  the  food  of  the 
big  fishes  swarm  in  the  sea. 

Probably  no  species  is  ever  exterminated  by  its 
natural  enemies.  These  enemies  only  keep  it  in 
check.  The  birds  keep  the  insects  from  ruining  vege- 
tation, which  is  the  source  of  all  food.  Slay  all  the 
lions  in  Africa,  and  probably  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence of  the  antelope  tribe  would  soon  be  harder 
than  it  is  now.  Hence  the  animals  of  prey  are  a  good 
gift  even  to  the  animals  they  prey  upon.  The  plus  of 
the  breeding  instinct  of  the  latter  would  in  time  re- 
sult in  overpopulation  and  in  famine. 

The  things  that  are  preyed  upon  are  more  joyous 
and  contented  than  their  enemies.  The  carnivorous 
animals  are  sohtary  and  morose;  the  birds  of  prey 
are  the  same.  The  chipmunk  seems  to  have  a  much 
better  time  than  the  weasel,  the  bluebird  than  the 
owl  that  lines  its  nest  with  blue  feathers.  One  might 
envy  the  song  sparrow,  or  the  vesper  sparrow,  or 
the  robin,  but  never  the  shrike  nor  the  sharp- 
skinned  hawk  that  pursues  them.  The  eagle  is  a 
grand  bird,  but  evidently  the  lark  is  much  the  hap- 
pier. The  jay  devours  the  eggs  and  the  young  of  the 
smaller  birds,  but  these  birds  greatly  outstrip  him 
in  the  race  of  life.  The  murderers  evidently  have 
less  joy  in  their  lives  than  the  murdered.  The  crow 
rarely  sheds  blood,  and,  compared  with  the  hawk, 
he  is  a  happy-all-the-year-round  vagabond. 

Nature  has  made  the  wild  creatures  fearful  of 
168 


TOOTH  AND  CLAW 

their  natural  enemies,  and  has  endowed  them  with 
means  to  escape  them;  then  she  has  equipped  these 
enemies  with  weapons  and  instincts  to  defeat  this 
(her  own)  purpose.  She  plays  one  hand  against  an- 
other. Wild  life  is  divided  into  two  warring  camps, 
and,  as  in  our  own  wars,  new  devices  for  defense  on 
the  one  hand  are  met  with  new  devices  of  attack  on 
the  other.  The  little  night  rodents  have  big  and 
sharp  eyes,  but  the  owl  that  preys  upon  them  has 
big  and  sharp  eyes  also,  and  his  flight  is  as  silent  as 
a  shadow.  You  see.  Nature  is  impartial;  she  has  the 
good  of  all  creatures  at  heart.  If  it  is  good  for  the 
hawk  to  eat  the  bird,  it  is  good  for  the  bird  to  be 
equipped  with  swift  wings  and  sharp  eyes  to  evade 
the  hawk.  A  little  more  advantage  on  either  side 
and  the  game  would  be  blocked  —  the  birds  would 
fail  or  the  hawks  would  starve.  As  it  is,  "the  race  is 
to  the  swift  and  the  battle  to  the  strong."  Nature 
keeps  the  balance.  Action  and  reaction  are  equal. 
The  skunk  and  the  porcupine  have  little  or  no  fear; 
neither  have  they  much  wit.  Their  weapons  of  de- 
fense are  nearly  always  ready,  and  that  of  the  por- 
cupine acts  automatically;  that  of  the  skunk  is  a 
little  more  deliberate  and  inflicts  less  pain,  but  gives 
great  discomfort  and  discomfiture. 

Nature  keeps  one  form  in  check  with  another 

form,  and  thus,  like  a  wise  capitalist,  distributes  her 

investments  so  that  the  income  is  constant.  If  she 

put  her  funds  all  in  mice  and  birds,  the  cats  and 

169 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

owls  would  soon  starve;  if  she  put  them  all  in  wood- 
chucks,  the  pastures  and  meadows  would  soon  fail 
the  herds.  And  this  reminds  me  how  man  often  dis- 
turbs the  balance  of  nature;  the  clearing-up  and  the 
cultivation  of  the  land  have  held  in  check  the  natu- 
ral enemies  of  the  woodchucks  —  foxes  and  owls  — 
at  the  same  time  that  they  have  greatly  increased 
the  woodchuck's  sources  of  food-supply,  so  that  in 
some  sections  these  rodents  have  become  a  real  pest 
to  the  farmer.  The  same  changed  conditions  appre- 
ciably favor  the  meadow  mice,  and  they,  too,  seem 
to  be  on  the  increase.  But  this  increase  again  may 
stimulate  the  increase  of  the  mice-hunting  hawks, 
and  thus  the  balance  be  maintained.  Herein  lies  the 
danger  of  introducing  new  forms  of  wild  life  in  a 
country  —  their  natural  enemies  are  not  always  on 
hand  to  check  them.  The  mongoose  has  overrun 
Jamaica  and  has  not  yet  found  an  adequate  natural 
enemy.  Introduced  into  this  country,  it  would  be 
an  incalculable  calamity,  though  in  time  it  would 
doubtless  meet  with  a  natural  check.  Our  weasels, 
related  to  the  mongoose,  are  prolific,  and  seem  to 
have  few  natural  enemies,  and  yet  they  do  not 
unduly  increase;  it  seems  as  if  some  unknown  hand 
must  stay  them.  They  prey  upon  all  the  smaller 
rodents  and  find  them  easy  victims,  yet  these  ro- 
dents are  vastly  more  numerous  than  the  blood- 
suckers. I  often  see  marks  upon  the  snow  where  the 
muskrat  and  the  rabbit  have  fallen  before  them,  and 
170 


TOOTH  AND  CLAW 

yet  one  sees  scores  of  these  animals  to  one  weasel  or 
mink. 

How  our  domestic  animals  would  suffer  if  they 
had  the  gift  of  ideation  and  knew  what  awaited 
them!  Pope  anticipated  me  when  he  wrote: 

"The  Iamb  thy  riot  dooms  to  bleed  to-day. 
Had  he  thy  reason  could  he  skip  and  play? 

"Pleased  to  the  last  he  crops  the  flowery  food. 
And  licks  the  hand  just  raised  to  shed  his  blood." 

K  the  horse  only  knew  his  own  strength,  and 
knew  that  he  had  "rights,"  would  there  not  soon  be 
a  horse  rebellion?  Would  the  swine  and  the  cattle 
fatten  in  their  pens  and  stalls  if  they  knew  what  is 
before  them?  Animals  suffer  no  mental  anguish 
either  over  the  past  or  concerning  the  future;  they 
live  in  the  present  moment;  no  future  looms  before 
them,  no  past  haunts  their  memories.  Their  pain  is 
brief,  their  joy  is  unconscious;  they  live  to  feed  and 
breed;  they  slay  without  penalties,  and  they  are 
slain  without  remorse;  they  find  their  place  and  live 
their  day,  and  Mother  Nature  reaps  the  harvest. 

Would  we  have  a  world  without  struggle  or  pain 
or  friction  of  any  kind?  Good  means  ease,  leisure, 
security;  but  it  means  something  more:  it  means 
achievement,  victory,  the  overcoming  of  evil,  the 
development  of  power,  the  making  of  the  world  a 
better  place  to  live  in,  and  much  more.  Is  Nature  a 
tyrant  because  we  have  to  earn  our  living?  Because 
171 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

we  have  to  plow  and  plant  and  hoe?  Because  flood 
and  fire  will  destroy  us,  and  the  winds  rack  us,  if 
we  loose  our  grip?  We  have  life  on  these  terms;  they 
are  the  conditions  that  beget  and  sustain  life.  A 
world  void  of  evil,  as  we  use  the  word,  would  be  a 
world  void  of  good  also,  a  negative  world.  Without 
death  there  can  be  no  life;  without  struggle  there 
can  be  no  power. 


XI 

MEN  AND  TREES 

I  DO  not  see  that  Nature  is  any  more  solicitous 
about  the  well-being  of  man  than  she  is,  say, 
about  the  well-being  of  trees.  She  is  solicitous  about 
the  well-being  of  all  life,  so  far  as  the  conditions  of 
life  favor  its  development  and  continuance  —  men 
and  trees  alike.  But  all  have  to  run  the  gantlet  of 
some  form  of  hostile  forces  —  the  trees  one  kind, 
man  another.  What  I  mean  is  that  evil  in  some  form 
waits  upon  all  —  hindrances,  accidents,  defeat, 
failure,  death. 

The  trees  and  the  forests  have  their  enemies  and 
accidents  and  set-backs,  and  men  and  communities 
of  men  have  analogous  evils.  Trees  are  attacked  by 
worms,  blight,  tornadoes,  lightning,  and  men  are 
attacked  by  pestilence,  famine,  wars,  and  all  man- 
ner of  diseases.  Every  tree  struggles  to  stand  up- 
right; it  is  the  easiest  and  only  normal  position. 
Men  aspire  to  uprightness  of  thought  and  conduct, 
but  a  thousand  accidental  conditions  prevent  most 
of  them  from  attaining  it.  One  tree  in  falling  is  likely 
to  bring  down,  or  to  mutilate,  other  trees,  as  the 
moral  or  business  downfall  of  a  strong  man  in 
a  community  is  quite  sure  to  bring  evil  to  many 
others  around  him.  Trees  struggle  with  one  another 
173 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

for  moisture  and  sustenance  from  the  soil,  and  for 
a  place  in  the  sun,  as  men  do  in  the  community,  and 
the  most  lucky,  or  the  most  fit,  survive.  Nature 
plans  for  a  perfect  tree  as  she  plans  for  a  perfect 
man,  but  both  tree  and  man  have  to  take  their 
chances  with  hostile  forces  and  conditions  amid 
which  their  lot  falls,  so  that  an  absolutely  perfect 
oak  or  elm  or  pine  is  about  as  rare  as  a  perfect  man. 
Of  course  Nature  has  endowed  man  with  mental 
and  spiritual  powers  which  she  has  not  bestowed 
upon  trees.  These  powers  give  man  an  advantage 
over  trees,  but  not  the  same  advantage  over  men  — 
his  own  kind  of  tree  —  because  his  fellows  are  simi- 
larly endowed.  His  struggle  with  his  own  kind  is  as 
inevitable  as  the  struggle  of  trees  with  their  kind, 
with  this  advantage  in  favor  of  the  trees :  theirs  is  al- 
ways a  peaceful  competition,  it  never  takes  the  form 
of  destructive  wars.  Trees  of  opposite  kinds  will 
draw  away  from  one  another;  a  pine  will  draw  away 
from  a  maple  or  an  oak,  not,  I  suppose,  because  of 
any  natural  antagonism,  but  because  it  is  less  mo- 
bile and  its  tender  but  more  rigid  branches  cannot 
stand  the  buffetings  of  the  more  mobUe  and  flexible 
deciduous  trees.  Pine  loves  to  associate  with  pine, 
and  spruce  with  spruce.  The  spirit,  the  atmosphere 
of  a  pine  or  a  hemlock  forest,  how  different  from 
that  of  a  beech  or  a  maple!  Most  trees  tend  to  asso- 
ciate themselves  together  in  large  bodies,  as  did 
primitive  man,  and  civilized  man,  too,  for  that  mat- 
174 


MEN  AND  TREES 

ter.  The  conifers  are  more  clannish  than  the  decidu- 
ous trees. 

Are  not  a  generation  of  leaves  and  a  generation  of 
men  subject  to  about  the  same  laws  of  chance?  The 
baby  leaves  have  their  enemies  in  insects  that  de- 
vour them,  in  blight  that  withers  them,  in  frost  that 
cuts  them  short,  and  when  they  are  matured,  how 
the  winds  buflfet  them  (Nature  does  n't  temper  the 
wind  to  the  tender  leaf),  how  the  gales  lash  them, 
how  the  hail  riddles  them!  If  they  had  powers 
of  thought,  what  a  struggling,  agitated,  unstable 
world  they  would  think  themselves  born  into! 
When  a  summer  tempest  strikes  a  maple-  or  an  oak- 
tree,  the  strain  and  stress  of  the  foUage  is  almost 
painful  to  witness.  Yet  when  the  tempest  subsides, 
hardly  a  leaf  is  torn  or  detached,  and  when  autumn 
comes,  the  ranks  of  the  vast  army  of  the  leaves  are 
but  little  thinned,  and  the  great  majority  of  leaves 
ripen  and  fall  to  the  ground  unscathed.  They  have 
come  through  the  campaign  of  life  and  have  experi- 
enced many  ups  and  downs,  and  yet,  on  the  whole, 
they  have  each  had  an  active  and  useful  life.  The 
leaf -rollers  have  made  their  nests  in  a  few  of  certain 
kinds  of  them,  the  leaf-cutters  have  made  holes  in 
certain  other  kinds,  the  gall  insects  have  made  their 
nurseries  at  the  expense  of  still  other  kinds;  but  all 
these  things  amount  to  a  small  fraction  of  the  whole. 
When  a  plague  of  forest  worms  comes  and  strips  the 
maples  or  the  beeches,  or  a  plague  of  elm-beetles 
175 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

strips  the  elms,  and  the  invasion  of  a  foreign  deadly 
fungus  kills  all  the  chestnuts,  these  calamities  are 
paralleled  by  the  plagues  that  in  past  times  have 
swept  away  large  numbers  of  human  beings  and 
depopulated  whole  countries,  or  by  epidemic  dis- 
eases, such  as  infantile  paralysis,  that  now  and  then 
rage  over  widespread  areas. 

Go  and  sit  down  in  our  mixed  beech,  maple,  birch, 
and  oak  woods  and  witness  the  varying  fortunes  of 
the  trees.  How  many  of  them  have  had  misfortunes 
of  one  kind  or  another!  How  few,  if  any,  have 
reached  their  ideal !  How  many  are  diseased  or  dying 
at  the  top  or  decaying  at  the  root !  Some  have  been 
mutilated  by  the  fall  of  other  trees.  Youth  and  age 
meet  and  mingle.  Some  trees  in  their  teens,  as  it 
were,  are  very  thrifty;  others  are  old  and  decrepit. 
In  fact,  the  fortunes  of  the  individual  trees  are  much 
like  those  of  men  and  women  in  a  human  com- 
munity —  struggle,  competition,  defeat,  decay,  and 
death  on  all  sides.  All,  or  nearly  all,  the  evils  that 
afflict  men  have  their  counterpart  in  the  evils  that 
afflict  the  trees  of  the  forest.  When  some  species  of 
forest  worm  threatens  the  destruction  of  our  beech 
or  maple  forests  some  other  form  of  insect-life  steps 
in  and  puts  an  end  to  their  increase,  and  the  plague 
vanishes.  The  gypsy  and  the  brown-tailed  moths 
which  have  so  ravished  the  groves  and  forests  of  the 
Eastern  States  will  doubtless  in  time  be  held  in 
check  by  their  natural  enemies.  The  plague  of  tent 
176 


MEN  AND  TREES 

caterpillars  that  got  such  headway  in  New  York 
State  that  it  threatened  to  become  a  public  calamity 
was  effectually  checked  by  the  cold  and  rain  of  the 
May  of  1917.  Not  one  tent  caterpillar  have  I  seen 
during  the  past  three  years.  The  plague  of  currant- 
worms  was  checked  in  the  same  way.  Sooner  or  later 
any  excess  is  sure  to  be  corrected.  But  so  far  as  we 
can  see,  such  things  as  the  chestnut  blight  and  hick- 
ory blight  must  rage  like  a  fire  till  they  have  spent 
themselves  and  there  are  no  more  chestnut-  or  hick- 
ory-trees to  be  destroyed.  Throughout  the  course  of 
the  biological  history  of  the  globe,  both  plants  and 
animals  have  dropped  out  in  some  such  way,  and 
new  forms  come  in  —  come  in  through  the  slow  ac- 
tion of  the  evolutionary  impulse. 

The  Providence  I  see  at  work  in  the  case  of  the 
trees  does  not  differ  at  all  from  the  Providence  I  see 
at  work  in  the  case  of  men.  It  is  one  and  the  same, 
and  that  one  is  as  I  have  so  often  said,  wholesale, 
indiscriminating,  regardless  of  individuals,  regard- 
less of  waste,  delays,  pain,  suffering,  failure,  yet  in- 
suring success  on  a  universal  scale,  the  scale  of  cen- 
turies and  geologic  periods.  Our  standards  of  time 
compared  with  Nature's  standards  are  like  our  in- 
terplanetary spaces  compared  with  the  iijconceiva- 
ble  abysses  of  the  sidereal  heavens  —  minutes  com- 
pared to  centuries.  Our  little  family  of  planets 
moves  round  the  fireside  of  our  little  sun  —  a 
small  chimney-corner  in  the  vast  out-of-doors  of 
177 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

astronomic  space,  where  suns  and  systems  and 
whole  universes  of  worlds  drift  hke  bubbles  on  the 
sea.  Give  Nature  time  enough,  and  the  world  of  to- 
day, or  of  any  day,  becomes  an  entire  stranger  to 
you.  Orion  will  no  longer  stalk  across  the  winter 
skies,  the  pole-star  will  no  longer  guide  your  ships, 
if,  indeed,  there  remains  any  ocean  for  your  ships  to 
sail  upon. 

The  Natural  Providence  is  not  concerned  about 
you  and  me.  In  comparison  it  is  concerned  only 
about  our  race,  and  not  lastingly  concerned  about 
that,  since  races,  too,  shall  go. 

"Races  rise  and  fall, 
Nations  come  and  go; 
Time  doth  gently  cover  all 
With  violets  and  with  snow." 

As  I  sit  here  imder  an  old  heavy-topped  apple- 
tree  on  a  hot  midsummer  day,  a  yellow  leaf  lets  go 
its  hold  upon  the  branch  over  my  head  and  comes 
softly  dovm  upon  the  open  book  I  am  reading.  It  is 
a  perfect  leaf,  but  it  has  had  its  day.  The  huge  fam- 
ily of  leaves  of  which  it  was  a  member  are  still  rank 
and  green  and  active  in  sustaining  the  life  of  the 
tree,  but  this  one  has  dropped  out  of  the  leafy  ranks. 
There  are  a  few  small  dark  spots  upon  it,  which, 
I  see  with  my  pocket  glass,  are  fungus  growths, 
or  else  some  germ  disease  of  apple-tree  leaves,  per- 
haps, like  pneumonia,  or  diphtheria,  or  tuberculosis 
among  men.  One  leaf  out  of  ten  thousand  has  fallen. 
178 


MEN  AND  TREES 

Was  Fate  cruel  to  it?  From  the  point  of  view  of  the 
leaf,  yes  —  could  a  leaf  have  a  point  of  view;  from 
the  point  of  view  of  Nature,  no.  The  tree  has  leaves 
enough  left  to  manufacture  the  needed  chlorophyl, 
and  that  satisfies  the  law.  If  all  the  leaves  were 
blighted,  or  were  swept  off  by  insect  enemies,  or 
stripped  by  hail  and  storm,  that  were  a  calamity  to 
the  tree.  But  one  leaf,  though  all  the  myriad  forces 
of  Nature  went  to  its  production,  though  it  is  a 
marvel  of  delicate  structure  and  function,  though 
the  sun's  rays  have  beaten  upon  it  and  used  it,  and 
been  kind  to  it,  though  evolution  worked  for  untold 
ages  to  bring  its  kind  to  perfection  —  what  matters 
it?  It  will  go  back  into  the  soil  and  the  air  from 
which  it  came,  and  contribute  its  mite  to  another 
crop  of  leaves,  and  maybe  it  has  rendered  the  mole- 
cules of  carbon  and  hydrogen  and  oxygen  of  which 
it  is  composed  more  ready  and  willing  to  enter  into 
other  living  combinations.  And  the  fungus  germs 
that  have  preyed  upon  it,  they,  too,  have  had  their 
period  of  activity,  and  have  justified  themselves. 
Nature  thus  pits  one  form  against  another,  and  her 
great  drama  of  life  and  death  goes  on.  Are  her  stakes 
more  in  the  one  than  in  the  other,  since  she  favors 
both?  Yes,  she  has  more  at  stake  in  health  than  in 
disease.  If  disease  always  triumphed,  all  life  would 
go  out.  Of  course,  in  the  sum  total  of  things,  the  life 
of  this  old  tree  counts  for  but  little,  but  if  it  failed  to 
bear  apples,  its  chief  end  would  be  defeated.  Evil  is 
179 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

limited;  it  is  a  minor  counter-current,  but  it  is  just 
as  real  as  the  good;  it  is  a  phase  of  the  good;  we  have 
evil  because  we  first  have  good.  Both  are  relative 
terms.  We  are  prone  to  speak  of  good  and  evil  as  if 
they  were  something  absolute,  like  gravity  or  chemi- 
cal affinity.  But  are  they  any  more  absolute  than 
heat  and  cold,  or  than  big  and  little?  What  pleases 
us,  and  is  conducive  to  our  well-being,  we  call  good, 
and  its  opposite  we  call  evil.  We  are  not  to  make  our 
wants  and  dislikes,  our  pleasures  and  our  pain,  the 
measure  of  the  universe,  as  we  do  mathematics  and 
physics.  We  can  think  of  things  in  terms  of  art  and 
literature,  of  beauty  or  ugliness,  or  in  terms  of  mo- 
rahty  and  religion,  or  we  may  think  of  them  in  terms 
of  science  and  of  exact  knowledge.  When  we  say 
they  are  good  or  bad,  we  are  thinking  of  them  in 
terms  of  morals  or  of  reUgion;  when  we  say  they  are 
beautiful  or  ugly,  we  are  describing  them  in  terms 
of  aesthetics;  when  we  say  they  are  true  or  false, 
real  or  delusive,  we  are  talking  of  them  in  terms  of 
science. 

This  sere  and  prematurely  ripened  leaf  appeals  to 
my  literary  and  imaginative  faculties  through  its 
beauty  and  its  symbolic  character;  it  appeals  to  my 
understanding,  my  love  of  accurate  knowledge,  by 
reason  of  the  blight  that  caused  its  fall. 

Our  going  out  of  the  world  seems  equally  fortui- 
tous and  haphazard  in  infancy,  youth,  middle  life, 
old  age;  before  we  have  fairly  Uved,  or  after  life  has 
180 


MEN  AND  TREES 

lost  its  value,  or  in  the  height  of  our  powers,  or  in 
the  decrepitude  of  old  age:  which  shall  it  be? 

The  naturist  sees  all  life  as  a  whole.  Man  is  not  an 
exception,  but  part  of  the  total  scheme.  The  Ufe 
principle  is  the  same  in  him  as  in  all  else  below  him 
—  the  principle  that  organizes  matter  into  count- 
less new  forms;  that  crosses  and  uses  the  mechanical 
and  chemical  forces,  and  begets  numberless  new 
compounds;  that  develops  organs  and  functions, 
and  separates  the  living  world  so  sharply  from  the 
non-living.  In  the  weed,  the  tree,  and  in  man,  the 
principle  is  the  same.  What  has  set  up  this  organiz- 
ing power  and  so  impressed  it  that  it  goes  on  from 
lower  to  higher  forms,  and  unfolds  the  whole  drama 
of  evolution  through  the  geologic  ages,  is  the  mys- 
tery of  mysteries.  To  solve  this  mystery,  mankind 
invented  God  and  acts  of  creation.  But  a  God  apart 
from  Nature  is  to  me  unthinkable,  and  science  finds 
no  beginning  of  anything.  It  finds  change,  trans- 
formation, only.  When  or  where  did  man  begin? 
Where  does  the  circle  begin?  Self-beginning  —  who 
can  think  of  that?  Can  we  think  of  a  stick  with  only 
one  end?  We  can  think  of  a  motion  as  beginning  and 
ending,  but  not  of  substance  as  beginning  and  end- 
ing. When  the  metabolism  of  the  body  ceases,  death 
comes.  Do  we  think  of  life,  or  the  organizing  princi- 
ple, as  then  leaving  the  body?  It  ceases,  but  does  it 
leave  the  body  in  any  other  sense  than  that  the 
flame  leaves  the  candle  when  it  is  blown  out?  And  is 
181 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

this  any  different  in  the  case  of  man  than  it  is  in  the 
case  of  a  tree  or  a  dog?  We  postulate  what  we  call  a 
soul  in  man,  which  we  deny  to  all  other  forms  of  life 

—  an  independent  entity  which  separates  from  the 
body  and  lives  after  it.  But  we  run  into  difficulties 
the  moment  we  do  so.  In  the  biologic  history  of 
man,  when  and  where  did  the  soul  appear?  Did  the 
men  of  the  old  Stone  Age,  of  whom  Professor  Os- 
bom  writes  so  graphically  and  convincingly,  have 
it?  Did  the  Piltdown  man,  the  Neanderthal  man, 
the  Java  man  of  Du  Bois,  have  it?  Did  our  ancestral 
forms  still  lower  down  have  it?  Do  babies  have  it? 
Do  idiots  and  half-witted  persons  have  it? 

All  we  can  claim  for  man  above  the  lower  orders 
is  higher  intelligence,  greater  brain  power,  the 
power  of  reflection,  and  the  logical  process.  His  dog 
has  perceptive  intelligence,  but  not  reflective; 
animals  act  from  inherited  impulse;  man  from  im- 
pulse, thought,  ideation.  Man's  instinctive  impulses 
are  guided  or  restrained  by  thought;  his  emotions 

—  anger,  love  —  wait  upon  thought;  his  migratory 
instinct  waits  as  that  of  the  lower  animals  does  not. 
But  when  this  extra  power  began,  who  can  say? 
It  had  no  beginning,  it  dawned  by  insensible  de- 
grees, as  do  all  things  in  Nature.  We  have  only 
to  heighten  our  conception  of  Nature  and  matter 
to  see  the  difficulties  vanish  —  and  the  stigma  of 
materialism  loses  its  terrors. 

In  these  later  centuries  mankind  has  steadily 
182 


MEN  AND  TREES 

grown  bolder  and  bolder  in  dealing  with  its  deities 
and  its  devils.  A  few  heroic  spirits  have  always 
questioned  the  truth  of  the  popular  creeds,  but  in 
our  day  a  very  large  majority  question  or  even  deny 
them.  Fear  of  the  wrath  above  or  the  wrath  below 
has  fled.  Men  are  fast  coming  to  see  that  devotion 
to  the  truth  is  the  essence  of  true  religion,  and  that 
the  worst  form  of  irreligion  is  the  acceptance  of 
creeds  and  forms  without  examining  them,  or  upon 
the  sole  authority  of  some  book  or  sect.  The  truth- 
loving  man  is  the  God-loving  man.  We  no  longer 
talk  of  God-fearing  men  —  this  negative  attitude 
has  given  place  to  the  positive  attitude  of  love  and 
enjoyment.  The  wrath  of  God  no  longer  makes  us 
tremble.  The  swift  and  sure  vengeance  of  violated 
law,  both  in  the  physical  world  without  us  and  the 
physiological  world  within  us,  we  understand  and 
appreciate,  but  the  fury  and  revenge  of  the  offended 
gods  no  longer  disturb  our  dreams.  Nature  has  no 
mercy,  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  is  one  to  the  just 
and  the  unjust.  Only  the  moral  nature  of  man 
knows  right  from  wrong;  only  the  reason  of  man 
knows  truth  from  falsehood.  When  or  how  man  got 
this  moral  and  intellectual  nature  is  a  question  upon 
which  men  themselves  will  never  agree.  Did  it  come 
from  without  or  from  within  —  through  evolution 
or  revelation?  The  naturalist  or  naturist  is  bound  to 
believe  that  it  came  from  within  through  the  long 
process  of  evolution.  Whatever  favored  man's  de- 
183 


'ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

velopment  became  a  biological  law  and  had  sur- 
vival value.  Without  some  degree  of  right  con- 
duct and  fair  dealing  —  some  degree  of  perception 
of  the  true  and  the  false  —  the  race  of  man  could 
never  have  attained  its  present  high  position  in  the 
scale  of  animate  nature.  Through  some  inherent  im- 
pulse or  tendency  in  matter,  man  arose  out  of  the 
earth,  climbing  through  the  many  lowly  forms  to  his 
full  estate  of  a  rational  being.  It  has  been  a  long  and 
toilsome  and  painful  journey.  But  here  we  are,  and 
■when  we  look  back  through  the  geologic  vistas  we 
are  incredulous  that  we  came  that  road.  We  in- 
cline to  the  short  cut  through  the  Garden.  But  the 
study  of  the  ways  of  Nature  as  we  see  them  in  all 
living  things  opens  our  eyes  to  the  truth  of  evolu- 
tion. Of  course  the  great  puzzle  and  mystery  is,  Who 
or  what  stamped  upon  matter  this  organizing  and 
developing  impulse  and  caused  the  jBrst  unicellular 
life  in  the  old  Azoic  or  Palaeozoic  seas  to  branch  and 
grow  and  increase  in  complexity  till  it  gave  birth 
to  all  the  myriad  living  forms,  high  and  low,  that 
now  fill  the  earth?  But  here  again  I  am  using  the 
language  of  half-truth  —  the  language  of  our  ex- 
perience, which  makes  us  think  of  some  external 
agent  as  stamping  an  impulse  upon  matter.  If  we 
say  the  impulse  was  always  there,  that  it  is  insepara- 
ble from  matter  and  the  laws  of  matter,  just  as 
creation  is  without  beginning  and  end,  center  or 
circumference,  we  come  no  nearer  speaking  the  un- 
184 


MEN  AND  TREES 

speakable.  But  it  seems  to  me  we  do,  in  a  measure, 
satisfy  the  reason;  we  make  it  see  or  realize  its  own 
limitations;  reason  guides  reason. 

The  infinite  knows  neither  time  nor  space,  neither 
extension  nor  duration;  it  knows  only  the  here  and 
the  now.  It  does  not  wait  for  time  to  pass  or  for 
eternity  to  begin.  Eternity  is  now.  Man,  and  all  that 
has  arisen  out  of  him,  is  a  part  of  universal  nature. 
Are  we  not  held  to  the  sphere  .f^  Can  we  disturb  it  in 
its  orbit?  Can  we  banish  one  atom  from  it  or  add 
one  atom  to  it?  We  are  a  fragment  of  it,  its  laws 
pervade  our  minds,  and  we  cannot  get  away  from 
the  necessity  of  putting  our  thoughts  and  emotions 
in  the  terms  of  our  experience  as  dwellers  upon  this 
astronomic  globe.  We  may  fancy  that  we  get  away 
from  it  in  moments  of  abstract  thought,  but  we  do 
not;  we  do  not  get  away  from  ourselves  any  more 
than  we  can  outrun  our  shadow.  We  can  let  our 
imaginations  course  with  the  spheres  that  circle 
through  the  abysmal  depths  of  space,  but  we  can 
put  our  emotions  only  in  the  words  that  we  have 
invented  to  describe  our  experiences  in  this  little 
three-dimensional  corner  of  creation.  If  our  terms 
were  formed  from  our  experiences  amid  the  spheres, 
we  might  be  able  to  give  some  hint  of  the  Infinite. 
We  might  learn  how  to  describe  our  sensations 
when  emancipated  from  the  standards  and  Hmita- 
tions  of  the  world  in  which  we  live. 

Conventionally  religious  persons  shrink  from 
185 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

having  their  spiritual  life  discussed  in  terms  of 
psychology,  because  psychology  smacks  of  science 
and  science  acts  like  a  blight  upon  religion.  It  dispels 
mystery  and  lets  the  hght  of  day  —  the  garish, 
irreligious  day  —  into  the  twilight  or  the  darkness 
of  religious  emotion.  We  do  not  want  our  relation  to 
the  spiritual  world  explained  in  terms  of  our  com- 
mon knowledge  —  such  is  our  hankering  after  the 
unknown,  the  mysterious,  the  transcendent. 

One  side  of  our  nature  fears  the  Infinite,  and  we 
experience  a  chill  when  the  methods  of  this  world 
obtrude  themselves  there.  We  have  convinced  our- 
selves that  the  part  of  our  inner  life  which  we  call 
the  soul  is  something  more  sacred  and  mysterious 
and  nearer  to  the  Infinite  than  our  ordinary  facul- 
ties. What  victims  we  are  of  words!  What  is  the 
value  of  this  feeling,  and  how  did  it  arise?  Our  ap- 
preciation of  the  beautiful,  in  art  and  nature,  is 
equally  extra  and  transcends  our  practical  faculties. 
Man's  belief  in  another  world  —  an  ideal  world  of 
the  absolute  good  —  is,  of  course,  the  result  of  his 
strong  reaction  from  the  pain,  the  struggle,  the  in- 
completeness of  this  world.  Evolution  is  a  hard  road 
to  travel.  Being  bom  is  evidently  not  a  pleasant 
experience  for  the  baby,  and  in  this  world  man  is 
constantly  struggling  through  new  experiences  into 
a  higher  and  larger  life.  His  measure  of  happiness  is 
never  full  and  he  looks  for  compensation  in  another 
and  better  world.  He  does  not  see  that  there  can  be 
186 


MEN  AND  TREES 

no  better  world  —  that  pain  and  struggle  and  dis- 
appointment are  necessary  for  his  development,  and 
that  to  long  for  a  state  in  which  these  things  do  not 
exist  is  Uke  the  stream  longing  for  a  dead  equilib- 
rium. All  power  and  all  growth  come  from  a  break 
in  the  repose  of  the  physical  forces.  There  is  no 
power  in  a  uniform  temperature,  nor  in  water  at  a 
dead  level.  Mechanical  power  comes  down  an  in- 
cline, vital  power  is  a  lift  on  an  up-grade  —  all 
growing  things  struggle  upward;  the  vegetable  and 
animal  world  lift  the  earth  elements  up  against 
gravity  into  an  unstable  equilibrium.  Mechanical 
things  run  down  the  scale  toward  a  stable  equilib- 
rium. 

Our  life  goes  on  by  virtue  of  some  principle  or 
force  in  matter  that  tends  constantly  to  break  up 
the  stable  into  the  unstable,  to  force  the  elements 
into  new  chemical  combinations.  Our  machines 
dissipate  energy  in  doing  work;  the  Uving  body  con- 
serves energy  in  the  same  process.  It  grows  strong 
by  the  obstacles  it  overcomes,  up  to  the  limits  of  its 
powers.  The  clock  runs  down,  the  energy  we  put 
into  it  in  winding  it  up  is  dissipated;  but  the  growth 
of  a  Uving  body  is  a  winding-up  process,  a  dra wing- 
in  and  a  storing-up  process.  In  the  wood  and  coal  we 
burn  is  stored  up  the  heat  of  the  sun.  In  burning 
them  and  driving  machinery  by  means  of  the  heat 
developed,  the  energy  is  dissipated.  In  manual 
labor  the  human  body  dissipates  energy  also,  and 
187 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

it  is  the  same  solar  energy  that  the  engine  dissipates, 
and  it  does  it  in  the  same  mechanical  way ;  and  it  is 
constantly  replenished  from  without  through  the 
food  consumed.  But  the  human  or  living  engine 
stokes  itself.  It  is  a  clock  that  winds  itself  up,  a 
gun  that  loads  and  points  itself.  Because  the  living 
body  in  its  final  analysis  turns  out  to  be  a  machine 
as  absolutely  dependent  upon  mechanical  and 
chemical  principles  as  any  other  machine,  there  are 
those  who  see  no  radical  difiference  between  the 
mechanical  and  the  vital. 

I  conclude  that  it  is  equally  up-grade  from  the 
vital  or  physiological  to  the  psychical.  How  the  two 
connect  we  can  never  know,  but  that  the  think- 
ing man  dissipates  energy  there  is  no  doubt.  The 
body  and  the  soul  are  one  in  a  way  past  our  finding 
out.  When  we  discuss  these  things  in  terms  of  meta- 
physics, we  launch  upon  a  boundless  sea  and  reach 
no  real  port. 

When  we  project  ourselves  into  Nature  out  of 
which  we  came,  or  when  we  see  ourselves  there 
objectively,  —  our  virtues,  our  aspirations,  our 
vices,  and  our  vtdckedness, — we  sow  the  seeds  of 
our  religion.  We  grow  a  crop  of  gods  and  of  devils, 
and  heaven  and  hell  become  fixed  reaUties  to  us.  So 
do  we  make  the  world  in  which  we  live,  and  it  in 
turn  makes  us.  So  does  the  divine  in  us  keep  pace 
with  the  divine  we  see  in  Nature.  So  does  the 
beauty  of  our  own  characters  grow  as  we  see 
188 


MEN  AND  TREES 

beauty  in  the  character  of  others.  So  do  our  love, 
faith,  hope,  charity,  develop  and  augment  as  we 
see  these  things  in  the  world  about  us.  The  uni- 
verse is  thus  constituted,  and  that  is  all  we  can  say 
about  it. 

That  right,  human  right,  in  the  end  and  on  a 
large  scale,  prevails,  I  believe  to  be  true;  the  right 
that  in  long  periods  of  time  means,  or  rather  secures, 
the  well-being  of  the  race  —  the  greatest  good  to  the 
greatest  number. 

In  discussing  the  final  problems  of  the  universe, 
we  are  attempting  to  describe  the  Infinite  in  terms 
of  the  finite  —  an  impossible  task.  We  think  and 
speak  of  God  as  a  person,  because  our  experience 
gives  us  no  other  terms  in  which  to  conceive  Him 
except  in  terms  of  personality.  He  sees,  hears,  plans, 
governs,  creates,  loves,  suffers,  is  angry,  we  say,  — 
in  fact,  has  all  human  attributes  and  characteristics 
vastly  magnified.  He  is  an  omnipotent  and  omni- 
present man.  He  is  the  creator  and  organizer  and 
director  of  the  universe,  and  hence  is  responsible 
for  everything  in  it,  the  evil  as  well  as  the  good.  Our 
attitude  toward  Him  is  that  of  a  subject  toward  his 
sovereign,  or  toward  a  supreme  judge.  We  must 
praise,  exalt,  suppUcate,  propitiate  Him.  There  is 
lying  upon  my  table  a  recent  volume  of  sermons  by 
an  English  divine  called  "  The  Justification  of  God  " 
—  his  justification  in  the  face  of  the  terrible  World 
War  which  he  might  have  prevented.  Thus,  just  as 
189 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

soon  as  we  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of  our  human 
nature,  these  baffling  problems  thrust  themselves 
upon  us.  We  must  seek  some  grounds  upon  which 
we  can  excuse  or  vindicate  or  justify  this  supreme 
man  for  permitting  the  terrible  happenings  which 
darken  the  world.  As  this  is  not  an  easy  task,  men 
say  in  their  hearts,  and  often  with  their  lips:  "There 
is  no  God."  Better  no  God  than  a  being  who  would 
permit  the  sin  and  suffering  we  see  daily  all  about 
us,  and  that  history  reveals  to  us. 

The  only  alternative  I  see  is  to  conceive  of  God  in 
terms  of  universal  Nature  —  a  nature  God  in  whom 
we  really  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  with 
whom  our  relation  is  as  intimate  and  constant  as 
that  of  the  babe  in  its  mother's  womb,  or  the  apple 
upon  the  bough.  This  is  the  God  that  science  and 
reason  reveal  to  us  —  the  God  we  touch  with  our 
hands,  see  with  our  eyes,  hear  with  our  ears,  and 
from  whom  there  is  no  escape  —  a  God  whom  we 
serve  and  please  by  works  and  not  by  words,  whose 
worship  is  deeds,  and  whose  justification  is  in  ad- 
justing ourselves  to  his  laws  and  availing  ourselves 
of  his  bounty,  a  God  who  is  indeed  from  everlasting 
to  everlasting.  Of  course  in  the  light  of  the  old  theol- 
ogy this  is  no  God  at  all.  It  was  to  emancipate  us 
from  the  rule  of  this  God  that  the  old  conceptions 
of  a  being  above  and  far  removed  from  Nature  were 
formulated.  Nature  is  carnal  and  unholy.  Our 
theory  compels  us  to  say  to  matter  and  the  laws  of 
190 


MEN  AND  TREES 

matter,  "Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan."  We  struggle 
and  suffer  in  this  debasing  world  for  a  season,  and 
then  escape  from  it  to  a  higher  and  better  one.  In 
all  the  dark,  prescientific  ages  during  our  own  era 
—  dark  in  regard  to  man's  real  relation  to  the 
universe  in  which  he  finds  himself,  but  often  lumi- 
nous with  flashes  of  insight  into  the  nature  of  man 
himself  —  these  conceptions  ruled  man's  religious 
aspirations.  In  our  own  times  they  still  largely  rule 
in  various  modified  forms.  The  old  theological 
dogmas  are  more  or  less  discredited,  but  a  religion 
founded  upon  science  makes  little  headway  with 
the  average  man.  We  are  shaping  our  practical 
lives  —  our  business,  our  social,  our  economical 
relations,  more  and  more  according  to  scientific 
deductions.  We  seek  more  and  more  a  scientific  or 
naturalistic  basis  for  our  rules  of  conduct,  for  our 
altruism,  for  our  charitable  organizations,  for  our 
whole  ethical  system.  Any  principle  that  squares 
with  natural  law  is  indeed  founded  upon  a  rock. 
The  stars  in  their  courses  fight  for  the  cause  that  is 
founded  upon  natural  right,  which  in  human  rela- 
tions does  not  mean  the  right  of  the  strong  to 
trample  upon  the  weak,  but  the  right  of  all  to  their 
full  measure  of  free  development. 

Right  and  wrong  are,  of  course,  finite  terms,  and 

apply  only  in  the  human  sphere.  Universal  Nature, 

as  it  appears  among  non-living  bodies  and  forces, 

knows  neither  right  nor  wrong;  it  knows  only 

191 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

might.  As  it  appears  among  the  orders  below  man, 
it  knows  neither  right  nor  wrong.  Physics  and  chem- 
istry have  no  consciousness;  neither  have  beasts  or 
bacteria;  but  man  has,  and  this  fact  will  in  time 
determine  the  whole  course  of  human  history. 
Naturalism  makes  for  righteousness,  or  right- 
mindedness,  as  surely  as  it  makes  for  health  and 
longevity. 


XII 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 

I 

HOW  has  the  problem  of  evil  tried  men's  souls!  "^ 
How  have  their  gods  failed  to  live  up  to  the 
character  they  have  given  them!  How  have  they 
confused  our  moral  standards!  The  trouble  hes  in  a 
misconception  of  the  nature  of  evil,  and  in  a  false 
idea  of  the  universe  itself. 

There  is  no  problem  of  evil  until  we  have  made  or 
imagined  an  unnatural  and  impossible  world.  When 
we  have  enthroned  in  the  universe  a  powerful  man- 
made  God  who  is  the  embodiment  of  all  we  call 
good  and  the  contemner  of  all  we  call  evil,  then  we 
have  our  insoluble  problem.  To  help  ourselves  out'X 
we  invent  another  being  who  is  the  embodiment  of    ) 
all  we  call  evil  and  enthrone  him  in  regions  below.  / 
Upon  him  we  saddle  the  evil,  and  thus  we  try  to    7 
run  the  universe  with  these  two  antagonistic  prin-    I 
ciples  yoked  together,  and  no  end  of  confusion  in    ) 
our  religious  ideas  results. 

The  moment  we  postulate  an  all-loving,  all- 
merciful,  all-wise,  and  just  being  to  rule  the  affairs 
of  this  world,  and  place  him  in  such  intimate  re- 
lations with  it  that  not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground 
without  his  will  and  cognizance,  then,  indeed,  are  we 
193 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

in  troubled  waters  and  have  lost  our  reckoning.  We 
cannot  excuse  such  being  on  the  ground  that  his 
ways  are  inscrutable  and  past  finding  out.  A 
creator  who  sends  into  the  world  the  malformed,  the 
half-witted,  the  bestial,  the  naturally  depraved,  and 
then  holds  them  to  high  ethical  standards,  is  con- 
demned by  the  ideals  which  he  has  implanted  with- 
in us. 

Now  the  naturalist  has  no  such  trouble.  He  sees 
that  good  and  ftvil  are  only  relative  terms;  that 
they  both  grow  on  the  same  tree;  that  we  should 
notknowgood  were  there  no  evil;  that  there  would 
be  no  development  were  there  not  what  we  call  evil. 
Pain  and  suffering  are  inseparable  from  the  human 
lot.  They  are  a  parT"onEe~price  we  pay  for  our 
plaice  in  the  world.  All  struggle  we  look  upon  as 
evil.  Disease,  failure,  death  are  looked  upon  as  evil, 
but  they  are  conditions  of  our  lives.  Through  sick- 
ness we  learn  the  laws  of  health.  The  lower  ani- 
mals have  no  such  troubles  —  no  sickness,  intem- 
perance, or  war  or  avarice.  They  know  without 
reason  how  to  live,  but  man  has  reason,  and  the  joy 
of  its  exercise  and  the  peril  of  its  failure.  Are  we 
not  all  willing  to  pay  the  price?  —  to  take  it  on 
these  terms  rather  than  to  change  places  with  the 
brutes. f* 

What  a  troublesome  time  the  good  orthodox 
brethren  have  with  their  God!  He  does,  or  per- 
mits such  terrible  things.  Only  yesterday  He  sent  a 
194 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 

cyclone  through  the  State  of  IlUnois  that  killed  hun- 
dreds of  innocent  persons,  and  destroyed  hundreds 
of  peaceful  homes,  wiping  out  at  one  blow  the  re- 
sults of  long  years  of  human  labor.  A  few  years  ago 
He  sent  or  permitted  the  scourge  of  infantile  paraly- 
sis that  desolated  tens  of  thousands  of  homes  and 
left  a  trail  of  thousands  of  crippled  and  enfeebled 
children.  Again  He  sent  or  permitted  the  influenza 
to  sweep  over  the  land,  claiming  more  victims  than 
did  the  Great  War;  and  so  on.  How  our  fathers, 
rocked  in  the  cradle  of  the  old  creeds,  wrestled  with 
this  problem!  How_coiild  a  paternal  and  a-llrkadog 
God_do  these  things?  The ja3JjjuaJkt.^eada-Mtj^ 
differently.  His  god  is  no  better  than  Nature.  In 
fact,  his  god  and  Nature  are  one  aqd  JTii'ifP'^^^^^^- 
Nature  goes  her  way  and  her  ways  are  not  our  ways. 

\yp  take  our  chanrfgjjn  tTit^r^lagli  anrl  wor /-.f  pliyciVol 
forces.  T^iPy  b'^"^^*^  rlpvp|oppri   ng  anH   m.ldf^  IIS  WJlfft, 

we  are. 

It  was  only  a  few  years  ago  that  the  President 
of  the  United  States  asked  all  good  people  to  as- 
semble in  their  respective  places  of  worship  and 
pray  to  God  to  stop  the  tornado  of  war  and  crime 
that  was  then  devastating  Europe.  Is  it  possible  to 
conceive  of  a  being  anywhere  in  the  universe,  with 
power  to  stop  such  a  world  calamity,  who  would 
complacently  look  on  and  wait  till  the  sufferers  could 
unite  in  a  petition  to  him?  What  a  false  man-made 
god  such  a  conception  holds  up  to  us !  No  wonder  the 
195 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Wnrlrl  War  ,tj|^p,tiorArl  tlii'g  ^^r>r.nf^pf  JQp  IT]  thftiipnndn 
^L^,ir?dR.  and  If  ft  tVipm  witVio^it,  anv  fa,it.h  at  all ! 

Rogers  said  in  regard  to  evil  that  Sir  John 
Mackintosh  and  Malthus  and  another  philosopher 
whose  name  has  escaped  me,  all  agreed  that  the 
attributes  of  the  deity  must  be  in  some  respects 
limited,  else  there  would  be  no  sin  and  misery  in 
the  world. 

We  use  the  words  "good  "  and  "  evil "  in  a  narrow, 
personal  sense.  To  the  farmer  the  frost  that  blights 
his  crops  is  an  evil,  but  not  to  the  squirrels  who  are 
waiting  for  the  nuts  to  fall,  or  to  the  man  who  suf- 
fers from  hay  fever.  Rain  is  a  blessing,  but  how 
easily  it  becomes  a^urse !  A  cold  wet  spring  cuts 
off  the  insect  pests,  but  delays  the  plowing  and_~ 
planting.  It  is  hard  on  the  insectivorous  birds,  but 
the  plants  and  trees  profit.  The  grasshoppers  that 
eat  up  the  farmer's  pasturage  make  good  provender 
for  his  flock  of  turkeys. 

Blight  and  struggle,  frost  and  drought,  weed  out 
the  weaklings  and  beget  a  hardier  race. 

Moral  evil  —  intemperance,  avarice,  war,  lying, 
cheating  —  are  on  another  plane.  They  are  peculiar 
to  man.  Nature  below  him  knows  them  not.  But  as 
they  are  against  nature,  they  perpetually  tend  to 
correct  themselves.  The  business,  world,  has  learned 

that  honesty  is  the  best  policy.  Qieating  is  un- 

popular  because,  m  the  long  run,  it  does  not  pagi. 

The  most  aggressive  and  warlike  nation  upon  the 
196 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 

globe  has  at  last  got  its  eyes  open  to  the  evils  of 
militarism,  and  has  bought  its  emancipation  at  a 
heavy  price.  Tyranny  and  oppression  are  finally 
doomed .  by.  the. Jflature  of  man.  Nature's  ways  are 
roundabout,  and  often  regardless  of  cost.  The  chaos 
and  waste  and  suffering  in  Europe  to-day  are  in 
keeping  with  her  spendthrift  methods.  She  knows 
that  the  most  turbulent  and  mudd^  stream  wiH 
clear  itself  and  quiet  down.  The  track  of  the  cyclone 
through  the  forest  will  in  time  entirely  disappear. 
Evil  perishes,  the  good  increases  more  and  more. 
God  is  not  so  bad  as  we  paint  him,  and  we  have  no 
need  of  a  devil.  All  is  good.  Gravity  would  glue 
our  feet  to  the  ground  and  we  have  to  defeat  it 
every  time  we  lift  a  foot,  and  yet  how  could  we 
walk  or  work  without  gravity?  The  bad,  ortheevil, 
dogs  one's  footsteps,  but  it  teaches  us  circumspec- 
tion, and  to  beware  of  dangerous  paths. 

How  easy  to  put  one's  finger  on  this  or  that  and 
say,  "Here  are  positive  evils!"  —  all  diseases, 
smallpox,  infantile  paralysis,  influenza,  and  so  on  — 
but  they  are  only  remote  contingencies,  and,  on 
the  whole,  most  of  us  find  life  good.  There  arg!.,gQQd 
§eriaS-aBd.there  are  bad  ^erma>.l>nlilifi  gooH  Ya.st.ly 
predoxninata.  And  the  bad  germs  are  only  bad 
from  our  point  of  view.  Our  doors  and  windows  let 
in  the  cold  or  the  heat,  as  the  case  may  be.  We  have 
them  on  these  conditions.  Fruits  and  grains  nour-_ 
ish  us,  but  they  may  injure  us  also. 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

In  1916  my  naturalist's  faith  prompted  me  to 
;vTite  thus  of  the  World  War:  Two  world  forces  are 
at  death  grips  in  this  war.  In  terms  of  government 
it  is  autocracy  against  democracy;  in  terms  of 
biology  it  is  the  unfit  against  the  fit;  in  terms  of 
man's  moral  nature  it  is  might  against  right.  What- 
ever triumph  Prussian  aggressiveness  and  ruth- 
lessness  may  meet  with,  they  must  in  time  meet 
with  defeat,  else  Evolution  has  miscarried,  and  its 
latest  and  highest  product,  man's  moral  nature, 
is,  in  its  survival  value,  but  dust  and  ashes. 

II 

There  is  positive  good  and  there  is  negative  good. 
We  may  say  of  health  that  it  is  a  positive  good,  and 
of  sickness  that  it  is  a  negative  good,  because  it  re- 
veals to  us  the  conditions  of  health.  In  disease  the 
body  is  struggling  to  regain  its  health  —  to  recover 
and  retain  its  normal  condition.  Its  well-being  is 
the  result  of  a  certain  balance  between  contending 
forces.  What  we  call  the  hostile  forces  appear  only  as 
the  result  of  wrong  living.  The  lower  animals  have 
none  of  our  distempers  because  they  live  according 
to  nature.  Cattle  do  not  get  rheumatism  by  lying 
upon  the  wet,  cold  ground,  nor  pneumonia  from  ex- 
posure to  cold  and  storm.  In  the  freedom  of  the 
fields  and  woods  it  is  quite  certain  that  they  would 
never  become  infected  with  tuberculosis.  I  doubt 
if  the  wild  dog  or  the  wolf  ever  have  dog  distemper, 
198 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 

or  if  wild  horses  ever  have  crib-bite.  Disease,  as  we 
know  it,  is  a  product  of  civiUzation. 

Death,  of  course,  is  not  an  evil  when  it  comes  in 
the  regular  course  of  nature;  it  is  an  evil  when  it 
comes  prematurely.  The  various  social  evils  tend  to 
correct  themselves.  Moral  evils  —  lying,  cheating, 
selfishness,  uncharitableness  —  also  tend  to  correct 
themselves.  Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation  be- 
cause righteousness  has  great  survival  value.  The 
unrighteousness  of  Germany  caused  her  final  down- 
fall. In  an  earlier  age,  when  ethical  standards  were 
lower,  she  might  have  succeeded  in  dominating 
Europe.  Our  susceptibihty  to  pain  is  not  an  evil 
inasmuch  as  it  safeguards  us  against  a  thousand 
dangers.  What  I  would  say  in  a  score  of  ways  is 
that  there  is  no  evil  in  the  human  world  not  of  our 
own  making.  Plagues  and  famines  are  always  the 
result  of  human  folly  or  short-sightedness.  Filth 
breeds  disease.  Typhoid  fever  is  a  filth  disease  and 
is  preventable.  There  is  no  god  to  blame  for  our  dis- 
tempers. Nature's  hands  are  clean.  The  wind  is 
never  tempered  to  the  shorn  lamb,  in  spite  of  the 
proverb,  but  the  shorn  lamb  has  not  been  fleeced 
by  Nature.  A  heavy  snowfall  is  an  evil  in  towns  and 
cities,  but  a  good  thing  for  the  country.  It  enables 
the  meadow  mice  to  girdle  the  apple-trees,  but 
it  is  a  coverlid  that  greatly  profits  the  meadows 
themselves.  It  is  therefore  good  to  both  mice  and 
meadows. 

199 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Our  greatest  philosopher,  William  James,  had  a 
wide  grasp  of  fundamental  questions,  but  it  seems 
to  me  that  he  did  not  fully  grasp  the  problem  of 
evil ;  he  saw  the  universe  as  a  dual  universe,  two  prin- 
ciples, good  and  evil,  struggling  with  each  other. 
He  seemed  to  look  upon  good  and  evil  as  positive 
entities  in  themselves,  whereas  naturalism  sees  in 
them  only  names  which  we  give  to  our  experiences 
with  objects  and  conditions  in  this  world.  What 
favors  us,  as  I  have  so  often  said,  we  call  good,  and 
what  antagonizes  we  call  evil;  but  absolute  good 
and  absolute  evil  do  not  exist,  any  more  than  do 
absolute  up  and  down;  or  absolute  near  and  far. 
The  absolute  admits  of  no  degrees,  but  there  are  all 
degrees  of  good  and  bad.  Some  hostile  germs  are 
worse  than  others,  and  some  friendly  germs  are 
better  than  others.  Again  I  say,  we  live  in  a  world 
of  relativity. 

Naturalism  does  not  see  two  immeasurable 
realities,  God  and  Nature,  it  sees  only  one,  that  all 
is  Nature  or  all  is  God,  just  as  you  prefer. 

James  was  fond  of  quoting  Walt  Whitman,  but 
he  does  not  see,  as  Whitman  did,  that  there  is  no 
evil,  or,  if  there  is,  that  it  is  just  as  necessary  as  the 
so-called  good.  From  James's  point  of  view  Na- 
ture is  a  harlot  to  whom  we  owe  no  allegiance,  and 
another  world  is  demanded  to  correct  and  com- 
pensate the  failures  and  disappointments  of  this. 

Our  sacred  books  and  traditions  tell  us  of  one  God 
200 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 

who  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  and  who  on 
looking  upon  them  said  that  they  were  very  good. 
Here  is  where  the  trouble  begins  —  a  Creator  apart 
from  the  universe  who  looks  upon  and  approves 
the  work  of  his  hands.  This  is  the  early,  childish 
view  of  mankind.  As  Bergson  says,  when  we  apply 
to  the  universe  our  idea  of  a  maker  and  a  thing 
made,  trouble  begins.  The  universe  was  not  made; 
it  is,  and  always  has  been.  God  is  Nature,  and 
Nature  is  God.  If  this  is  pantheism,  then  we  are  in 
good  company,  for  Goethe  said  that  as  a  philosopher 
he  was  a  pantheist.  Even  the  atheist  has  a  god  of 
his  own.  He  knows  that  there  is  something  back  of 
him  greater  than  he  is. 

Most  persons  are  pantheists  without  knowing  it. 
Ask  any  of  the  good  orthodox  folk  what  God  is, 
and  they  will  say  that  He  is  a  spirit.  Ask  them 
where  He  is,  and  they  will  answer,  He  is  here, 
there,  everywhere,  in  you  and  in  me.  And  this  is 
pantheism  —  all  god  —  cosmotheism. 

"Truly  all  that  we  know  of  good  and  duty  pro- 
ceeds from  Nature;  but,  none  the  less  so,  all  that 
we  know  of  evil." 

"If  there  be  a  divine  spirit  of  the  universe,  Na- 
ture, such  as  we  know  her,  cannot  possibly  be  its 
ultimate  word  to  man,"  says  James.  But  does  he 
not  see  that  this  term  "divine  spirit"  is  bom  of 
man's  narrowness  and  partiality;  that  Nature  is  all 
of  one  stuff,  divine  or  diabolical,  just  as  we  elect? 
201 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

He  says  that  the  naturahstic  superstition,  the  wor- 
ship of  God  in  nature,  has  begun  to  lose  its  hold 
upon  the  educated  mind;  that  the  first  step  toward 
getting  into  healthy  relations  with  the  universe  is 
the  act  of  rebellion  against  the  God  of  nature. 

Poor  James  Thomson,  the  British  poet  whose 
pessimism,  perhaps,  caused  him  to  commit  suicide, 
whom  our  James  loves  to  quote,  hurled  his  scorn 
at  a  fiction  of  his  own  brain  when  he  wrote: 
"Not  for  all  thy  power,  furled  or  unfurled. 
For  all  thy  temples  to  thy  glory  built. 
Would  I  assume  the  ignominious  guilt 
Of  having  made  such  men  in  such  a  world." 

The  whole  value  of  philosophy  is  to  help  us  to  a 
rational  view  of  the  universe,  and  when  it  fails  to 
do  this,  it  falls  short  of  fulfilling  its  proper  function. 
Tiie  contradictions  of  which  James  speaks  do  not 
disturb  the  naturalist  at  all.  Nature  would  not  be 
Nature  without  these  contradictions  ;  they  do  not 
disturb  the  unity  of  Nature. 

Empedocles  taught  that  "there  is  no  real  crea- 
tion or  annihilation  in  the  universal  round  of  things, 
but  an  eternal  mixing  —  due  to  the  two  eternal 
powers,  Love  and  Hate  —  of  one  world-stuff  in  its 
sum  unalterable  and  eternal."  And  Whitman's 
large  lines  mean  the  same  thing: 

"  There  was  never  any  more  inception  than  there  is  now. 
Nor  any  more  youth  or  age  than  there  is  now. 
And  will  never  be  any  more  perfection  than  there  is  dow« 
Nor  any  more  heaven  or  hell  than  there  is  now." 


XIII 

HORIZON  LINES 

I.   THE  ORIGIN  OF  LIFE 

IN  dealing  with  fundamental  questions  like  the 
origin  of  life,  how  prone  our  natural  philosophers 
are  to  assume  the  existence  of  that  which  they  set 
out  to  prove.  Thus  PflUgler  assumes  living  protein 
in  the  shape  of  a  cyanogen  radical,  and  assumes 
that  this  radical  possesses  a  large  amount  of  inter- 
nal energy,  and  thus  "introduces  into  the  living 
matter  energetic  internal  motion."  As  cyanogen 
and  its  compounds  arise  only  in  incandescent 
heat,  he  concludes  that  life  is  derived  from  fire, 
that  its  germ  was  in  the  earth  when  it  was  still  an 
incandescent  ball. 

"As  soon  as  oxides  can  be  there,"  says  Moore, 
"oxides  appear,"  "When  temperature  admits  of 
carbonates,  then  carbonates  are  forthwith  formed." 
But  are  oxides  and  carbonates  mere  fortuitous 
compounds  —  just  chance  hits?  Moore  helps  him- 
self out  by  formulating  what  he  calls  the  "Law  of 
Complexity,"  a  law  that  holds  throughout  all  space. 
But  is  the  law,  again,  fortuitous?  Is  it  not  rather 
organized  intelligence?  "Atoms,  molecules,  colloids, 
and  living  organisms  arise  as  a  result  of  the  opera- 
tion of  this  law."  Allen  says,  "Life  arose  at  the 
203 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

period  when  the  physical  conditions  of  the  earth 
came  to  be  nearly  what  they  are  at  present."  Of 
course.  But  is  not  this  begging  the  question?  We 
do  not  know  Hfe  apart  from  these  conditions;  hence 
we  assume  that  the  conditions  beget  the  Hfe. 

What  is  hfe  anyhow.''  May  we  not  say  that  it  is  a 
new  motion  in  matter.?  It  does  not  introduce  a  new 
chemistry,  or  a  new  physics,  but  it  uses  these  to 
new  ends.  New  and  unstable  compounds  arise. 
Solar  energy,  says  Allen,  acting  on  various  carbon 
and  nitrogen  compounds,  would  set  up  various 
anabolic  and  catabolic  reactions  which  resulted  in 
life  —  life  of  a  very  humble  and  rudimentary  form, 
but  life. 

Troland  gets  life  from  the  enzymes,  but  how 
does  he  get  his  enzymes?  He  assumes  that  at  some 
moment  in  the  earth's  history  a  small  amount  of  a 
certain  autocatalytic  enzyme  —  a  self -created  en- 
zyme —  suddenly  appeared  at  a  definite  time  and 
place  within  the  yet  warm  ocean  waters  which  con- 
tained in  solution  various  substances  reacting  very 
slowly  to  produce  an  oily  liquid  immiscible  with 
water.  Troland  postulates  the  auto-  or  self -catalytic 
character  of  the  initial  enzyme,  which  is  virtually 
postulating  the  life-impulse  itself. 

Osborn,  in  his  work  on  the  "  Origin  and  Evolu- 
tion of  Life,"  also  virtually  starts  by  assuming  that 
which  he  sets  out  to  prove.  He  suggests  that  the 
initial  step  in  the  origin  of  life  was  the  coordinating 
204 


HORIZON  LINES 

and  bringing  together  of  the  then  primordial  ele- 
ments of  water,  nitrates,  and  carbon  dioxide,  "  which 
so  far  as  we  know  had  never  been  in  combined  action 
before."  Was  their  coming  together  a  blind,  for- 
tuitous affair?  Osborn  assumes  that  these  elements 
were  gradually  bound  by  a  new  form  of  mutual 
attraction  "out  of  which  arose  a  new  form  of  unity 
in  the  cosmos,  an  organic  unity  or  organism.  It 
was  an  application  of  energy  new  to  the  cosmos.  In 
fact  it  was  life."  "When  the  earth  had  in  the  course 
of  its  physical  evolution  become  adapted  as  the 
abode  of  life,  living  substances  came  into  being." 
By  their  own  independent  action,  or  by  what? 

In  trying  to  account  for  happenings  on  the  earth's 
surface,  we  follow  the  chain  of  cause  and  effect. 
But  when  we  try  to  explain  origins,  we  are  dealing 
with  a  chain  which  has  only  one  end. 

Picted,  a  Swiss  scientist,  concluded  that  because 
all  chemical  action  of  the  kind  which  goes  on  in 
living  things  is  annihilated  at  one  hundred  degrees 
below  zero  Centigrade,  therefore  chemical  action 
and  life  are  one.  But  chemical  action  is  as  old  as 
the  earth.  Is  life  as  old? 

II.    THE  LIVING  AND  NON-LIVING  WORLDS 

I  FANCY  I  am  not  alone  in  having  difficulty  in 
uniting  the  two  worlds  —  the  living  and  the  non- 
living —  and  in  seeing  them  under  the  same  law. 
In  the  one  I  see  something  like  mind  and  pur- 
205 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

pose;  every  living  thing  shows  something  for  which 
we  have  no  name  but  intelHgence.  Organization 
demands  an  organizing  principle.  There  is  purpose 
in  the  wings  of  a  bird,  the  legs  of  an  animal,  the 
fins  of  a  fish,  but  where  is  there  purpose  in  the  orbs, 
in  the  comets,  in  the  meteors?  Or,  to  come  down  to 
the  earth,  where  is  there  purpose  in  the  mountains, 
in  the  stratified  rocks,  in  the  ocean,  or  in  the  air 
currents? 

In  a  living  body  there  are  organs  which  function; 
in  a  non-living,  there  are  parts  which  act  and  are 
acted  upon.  To  see  mind  in  all  is  the  task  —  to  see 
in  gravity,  in  cohesion,  in  chemical  aflSnity,  in  disso- 
lution, anything  at  work  akin  to  ourselves.  We  see 
irrefragable  law;  we  see  the  sequence  of  cause  and 
effect;  we  see  the  weather  system  work  itself  out  — 
evaporation,  condensation,  precipitation,  resulting 
in  clouds,  rainfall,  springs,  streams,  lakes,  and  seas; 
we  see  the  never-failing  succession  of  the  seasons;  we 
see  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  force;  but  do  all 
these  things  imply  the  same  intelligence,  though 
unconscious,  which  we  see  in  the  sitting  bird,  or  in 
the  growing  plant  or  tree?  Is  the  cosmic  order  akin 
to  the  vital  order?  Of  course  mechanics  and  chemis- 
try are  one  the  universe  over;  atoms  and  molecules 
are  atoms  and  molecules;  but  where  does  mind  end, 
and  law  begin?  Or,  is  it  all  law,  or  all  mind,  accord- 
ing to  our  point  of  view?  The  moral  order,  which  is 
man's  order,  we  know  has  its  limits,  but  I  am  try- 
206 


HORIZON  LINES 

ing  to  see  if  the  rational  order  is  coexistent  with 
nature.  The  unity  we  seek  we  may  find  in  the  old 
conception  of  God,  but  this  saddles  all  the  turmoil 
and  disorder  and  evil  of  the  world  upon  an  all- 
wise,  all-good  Being. 

Shall  we  adopt  the  idea  of  a  primal  mind  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  human  mind,  as  the  poets  do?  I 
grasp  at  anything  that  will  help  me  see  that  I  am 
akin  to  the  farthest  star,  in  my  mind  as  in  my  body. 
I  cannot  think  of  a  dual  or  a  divided  universe.  I 
want  to  see  myself  as  strung  upon  the  same  thread 
as  all  the  rest  of  nature. 

In  organic  evolution  I  see  the  workings  of  the 
creative  impulse  —  or  growth,  as  opposed  to  mere 
accretion  or  accumulation.  In  the  light  of  the  same 
law  does  one  not  see  worlds  and  suns  potential  in 
the  spiral  nebulae?  Science  helps  us  to  see  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  chemical  elements,  or  to  follow  up  this 
defining  and  differentiating  process.  Could  we  fly 
to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  heavens,  we  should 
find  the  Cosmic  Mind  there  before  us. 

III.    THE  ORGANIZING  TENDENCY 

Is  it  possible  to  think  of  any  ingenious  contrivance 
in  nature  as  the  result  of  chance,  or  of  the  fortuitous 
clashing  and  jostling  of  the  elements?  Living  things 
are  full  of  these  ingenious  contrivances  which  serve 
a  definite  end  and  keep  life  going.  In  the  inorganic 
world  there  are  no  such  contrivances;  there  is  not 
207 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

the  simplest  bit  of  machinery  —  parts  adjusted 
to  parts,  and  the  whole  adjusted  to  some  specific 
end.  In  all  the  clashing  and  jostling  of  bodies  and 
forces  through  all  the  astronomic  and  geologic 
ages,  not  so  much  as  the  simplest  mechanical  de- 
vice —  a  coiled  spring  or  a  carpenter's  hammer 
— has  been  struck  out,  and  never  can  be.  It  is  true 
that  there  are  certain  static  conditions  of  mat- 
ter that  suggest  design  —  natural  bridges,  natural 
obelisks,  rude  architectural  and  monumental  struc- 
tures, and  human  profiles  on  the  rocks;  but  these 
are  not  the  result  of  a  constructive  process,  of  a 
building-up,  but  the  result  of  degradation:  the  ero- 
sive forces  carve  them  out  in  obedience  to  the  laws 
of  matter  and  energy.  We  easily  see  how  it  all  came 
about;  and  we  can  guide  these  forces  so  that  they 
will  repeat  the  process.  But  we  do  not  see  how  the 
living  body,  with  all  its  marvelous  adjustments  and 
coordinations,  came  about,  and  we  cannot  manipu- 
late matter  so  as  to  produce  the  simplest  living 
thing.  Darwinians  profess  to  see  in  natural  selec- 
tion —  which  is  simply  a  name  for  an  eliminating  or 
sifting  process  —  the  explanation  of  even  man  him- 
self. But  the  elimination  of  the  weaker  forms,  which 
has  gone  on  for  whole  geologic  ages  —  for  example, 
in  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado  —  has  not 
resulted  in  so  much  as  one  perfect,  four-square 
foundation,  or  one  perfect  flying  arch.  Natural  se- 
lection is  not  a  creative,  but  a  purely  mechanical, 
208 


HORIZON  LINES 

process.  We  involuntarily  personify  it,  and  think  of 
it  as  involving  will  and  power  of  choice;  think  of  it 
as  selecting  this  and  that,  as  a  man  docs  when  he 
weeds  his  garden  or  selects  his  seeds,  or  breeds  his 
animals.  But  it  is  not  positive  at  all.  It  is  negative  — 
a  dropping-out  process. 

Chance,  or  chance  selection,  works  alike  in  the 
organic  and  the  inorganic  realms,  but  it  develops  no 
new  forms  in  the  inorganic,  because  there  is  no  prin- 
ciple of  development,  no  organizing  push.  But  in 
organized  matter  there  is,  in  and  behind  all  this  or- 
ganizing, a  developing  principle  or  tendency;  the 
living  force  is  striving  toward  other  forms ;  in  other 
words,  development  occurs  because  there  is  some- 
thing to  develop.  An  acorn  develops,  but  a  quartz 
pebble  only  changes. 

The  living  body  is  placed  in  a  world  of  non-living 
bodies  and  forces,  and  it  takes  its  chances;  it  devel- 
ops only  by  their  aid;  if  warmth  and  moisture  are 
withheld,  it  ceases  to  develop;  or,  if  warmth  and 
moisture  are  in  excess,  it  ceases  to  develop;  its  well- 
being  is  insured  when  it  rides  the  inorganic  forces, 
and  is  not  ridden  by  them.  It  is  subject  to  the  law  of 
chance  of  the  world  in  which  it  is  placed,  but  that 
law  of  chance  does  not  explain  its  origin  or  its  de- 
velopment as  it  does  that  of  the  non-living  forms. 

That  it  is  all  the  result  of  design  or  purpose  of  an 
all-wise  Being,  working  his  will  upon  matter,  is 
equally  unthinkable.  Yet  if  it  is  the  result  of  chance, 
209 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

then  the  world  of  mind  and  soul  is  only  a  phase  of 
mechanics  and  chemistry.  In  that  case  the  head  of  a 
Paul  or  a  Homer  is  no  greater  wonder  than  a  vol- 
canic bomb,  having  essentially  the  same  origin.  If 
we  regard  it  as  the  work  of  design,  we  are  compelled 
to  saddle  all  the  sin  and  misery,  all  the  delays  and 
failures  and  wastes  of  the  geologic  ages,  upon  In- 
finite Wisdom  and  Goodness,  together  with  all  the 
famine  and  pestilence  and  carnage  and  miscarriages 
of  history. 

For  untold  millions  of  years  the  earth  was  given 
up  to  low,  groveling,  all  but  brainless,  bestial  forms, 
devouring  and  devoured;  for  other  untold  millions 
it  was  the  scene  of  a  carnival  of  terrible  dragon-like 
monsters  —  in  the  sea,  on  the  earth,  and  in  the  air 
—  a  tragedy  of  monstrous  forms  enacted  upon  an 
unstable  stage  that  rose  and  sank  or  was  over- 
whelmed by  fire  and  flood.  For  other  long  ages  it 
was  the  scene  of  ape-like  creatures  struggling  to  be 
man,  living  in  caves,  contending  with  savage  beasts, 
hirsute,  forbidding,  living  by  tooth  and  claw  and 
muscular  strength  more  than  by  wit,  followed  by  the 
long  historical  period  during  which  man  appeared 
and  has  fought  his  way  to  his  present  stage  of  de- 
velopment, through  blood  and  carnage  and  suffering 
and  misdirected  activities,  dogged  by  all  the  evil 
and  destructive  passions,  obstructed  and  thwarted, 
cut  off  by  plagues  and  wars,  engulfed  by  earth- 
quakes, devoured  by  fire  and  flood,  blinded  by  his 
210 


HORIZON  LINES 

own  ignorance,  consumed  by  his  own  evil  passions, 
yet  making  steady  progress  toward  the  position 
which  he  now  holds  in  the  animal  kingdom. 

IV.    SCIENCE  AND  MYSTICISM 

The  bogey  of  teleology  frightens  a  good  many 
honest  scientific  minds.  To  recognize  anything  akin 
to  intelligence  in  nature,  or  to  believe  that  a  uni- 
versal mind  is  immanent  in,  or  a  part  of,  the  cosmos, 
is  looked  upon  as  disloyalty  to  the  scientific  spirit. 

Lamarck's  idea  of  an  indwelling  directing  princi- 
ple in  organic  evolution  discredited  him  with  Dar- 
win, and  with  the  leading  biologists  since  his  time. 
Yet  Darwin  said  he  could  not  look  upon  the  uni- 
verse as  the  result  of  chance.  But  he  faltered  be- 
fore the  other  alternative  —  that  any  will  or  design 
lay  back  of  it. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  these  words  connote  things 
purely  human,  and  to  that  extent  are  likely  to  lead 
us  astray.  But  are  not  all  our  terms  human,  even 
the  word  "astray"  itself?  Can  we  have  any  other? 
Emerson  says  that  anything  may  be  affirmed  or  de- 
nied of  the  Infinite,  and  that  God  can  be  hinted  only 
in  signs  and  symbols.  In  trying  to  describe  time,  we 
need  a  new  language  that  differs  as  much  from  our 
ordinary  speech  as  algebra  differs  from  arithmetic. 
The  circle  and  sphere  are  the  only  complete  types  of 
Infinity. 

In  Professor  Loeb's  mechanistic  conception  of  life 
211 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

there  is  no  hint  of  mind  or  soul;  all  is  matter  and 
force.  All  the  mechanists  and  energists  and  materi- 
alists unconsciously  endow  their  matter  and  force 
with  creative  power,  thus  elevating  them  to  the 
rank  of  a  Deus. 

Science  knows  no  mysteries ;  it  knows  only  insolu- 
ble problems  and  comparatively  few  of  them.  But 
may  not  one  see  mysteries  in  nature  without  being  a 
mystic?  Physical  facts  may  be  inexplicable,  but  we 
do  not  call  them  mysteries.  The  birth  and  develop- 
ment of  the  cell  is  wonderful,  but  can  we  say  that  it 
is  mysterious?  Does  not  mystery  imply  something 
occult  and  unknowable?  Is  a  biologist  or  evolution- 
ist to  be  charged  with  mysticism  because  he  refuses 
to  admit  that  the  development  of  species  is  all  a 
matter  of  chance?  If  he  believes,  for  instance,  that 
the  horse  as  we  know  him  was  inevitable  in  that 
small  beast  of  Eocene  times,  the  eohippus,  is  he  to 
be  charged  with  a  teleological  taint?  Or  if  we  speak 
of  the  predestined  course  of  evolution  are  we  un- 
faithful to  the  true  scientific  spirit?  Is  not  the  acorn 
predestined  to  become  an  oak?  Does  growth  imply  a 
mysterious  guiding  force  or  principle?  The  little 
brown  house  wren  that  fusses  and  chatters  here 
around  its  box  on  my  porch  has  come  all  the  way 
from  Central  America.  Did  something  guide  it? 
Life  is  full  of  this  kind  of  guidance.  Not  much  of  na- 
ture can  be  explained  by  addition  and  subtraction; 
not  much  of  it  can  be  explained  by  mere  mechanics, 
212 


HORIZON  LINES 

or  physics;  not  much  of  it  can  be  explained  by  the 
doctrine  of  chance.  There  are  reasons  behind  rea- 
sons. You  may  give  good  physiological  reasons  why 
the  heart  beats,  why  the  liver  secretes  bile,  why  th:: 
digestive  processes  go  on  and  our  food  nourishes  us, 
but  can  you  find  the  mind  by  dissecting  the  brain  or 
connect  mind  with  matter? 

Mysticism  belongs  to  the  sphere  of  our  religious 
emotions,  and  when  we  read  natural  phenomena 
through  these  emotions  we  are  mystical.  We  cannot 
say  that  the  course  of  evolution  has  been  directed, 
and  we  cannot  say  it  goes  by  chance.  The  changes  of 
the  seasons  are  not  directed;  the  circuit  of  the  wa- 
ters from  the  earth,  through  the  sea  to  the  clouds 
and  back  to  the  earth,  is  not  directed;  the  orbs  in 
their  courses  are  not  directed;  the  sap  in  the  trees, 
the  blood  in  our  veins,  are  not  directed;  neither  are 
these  things  by  chance.  "An  inward  perfecting 
principle  "  is  the  divinity  that  shapes  the  ends  of  all 
organisms. 

Many  scientific  men  are  so  shy  of  teleology  that 
they  tend  to  the  other  extreme  and  land  in  a  world 
of  chance. 

Now,  if  man  and  all  the  other  forms  of  life  are  the 
result  of  chance,  then  Chance  is  a  very  good  god  and 
should  be  written  with  a  capital.  No  matter  what 
we  call  the  power  out  of  which  the  universe  flows,  or 
with  which  it  is  identified,  it  is  a  veritable  Deus. 

We  cannot  affirm  that  we  are  the  result  of  chance, 
213 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

nor  the  result  of  design,  as  we  use  these  words  in  our 
daily  lives.  These  words  apply  to  parts  and  frag- 
ments of  which  our  lives  are  made  up.  They  do  not 
help  us  in  dealing  with  the  whole.  We  share  in  the 
life  of  the  universe;  we  are  a  part  of  it,  and  what 
keeps  it  going  keeps  us  going.  What  set  evolution  on 
foot  and  evolved  the  organic  from  the  inorganic  is 
the  parent  of  us  all.  It  is  not  we  that  are  immortal; 
it  is  life,  and  the  universe.  We  pass  Uke  shadows,  but 
the  sun  remains  —  for  a  season.  We  say  of  a  thing, 
or  an  event,  that  it  came  by  chance,  when  we  see  no 
will  like  unto  our  own  directing  it;  at  the  same  time 
we  know  that  the  laws  of  matter  and  force  control 
everything.  Not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  with- 
out their  immutable  decrees.  In  the  same  sense  the 
hairs  of  our  heads  are  numbered. 

When  we  discuss  or  describe  the  universe  in  terms 
of  experience,  we  are  dealing  in  half-truths.  We  can- 
not describe  a  sphere  in  terms  of  angles  and  right 
lines;  no  more  can  we  describe  or  interpret  the  All  in 
terms  of  our  own  experience. 

If  it  were  Chance,  or  Darwin's  Natural  Selection, 
or  orthogenesis,  or  whatever  it  was,  that  brought 
me  and  all  other  forms  of  life  here,  that  gave  me  my 
mind  and  body,  that  put  my  two  eyes  and  my  two 
ears  just  where  they  are  of  most  service  to  me,  and 
my  two  arms  and  hands,  and  my  two  legs  and 
feet,  and  all  my  internal  organs,  my  double  circu- 
lation, my  heart  to  pump  the  blood  and  keep  the 
214 


HORIZON  LINES 

vital  machinery  going,  my  secretions  and  my  ex- 
cretions, my  lungs  to  lay  hold  of  the  air  and  purify 
the  blood,  my  liver  and  kidneys  to  eliminate  the 
poisons  and  effete  matter,  my  marvelous  diges- 
tive system  to  furnish  the  fuel  that  generates  the 
physical  power,  and,  more  than  all  these  things, 
that  looked  after  my  germ  in  the  old  Cambrian 
seas  and  brought  it  safely  down  through  the  haz- 
ards of  the  long  road  of  evolution  and  developed 
it  and  made  me  a  man,  and  gave  me  the  capacity 
to  contemplate  and  enjoy  this  amazing  universe  — 
the  power  or  the  blind  force  or  the  law  of  chance, 
I  say,  that  could  do  aU  this  is  god  enough  for  me.  I 
want  no  other. 

Do  we  expect  to  see  the  Natural  Providence  at 
work  as  we  see  man  at  work?  Nature  works  from  the 
inside.  In  the  human  sphere  there  is  a  maker  and  a 
thing  made.  Not  so  in  the  universe.  Things  are  in 
their  place  without  being  made.  Our  concepts  of  the 
beginning  and  the  end  do  not  apply  to  them.  The 
words  "chance"  and  "design"  are  bom  of  our  lim- 
ited knowledge. 

That  man  or  an  ant  or  a  leaf  or  a  flower  could  re- 
sult from  the  haphazard  jostling  together  of  the 
molecules  of  matter,  or  the  units  of  force,  is  un- 
thinkable. Could  one  get  an  intelligent  sentence,  or 
one's  own  name,  by  putting  the  letters  of  the  print- 
er's type  in  a  hat  and  shaking  them  up  till  the  crack 
of  doom?  —  an  old  and  trite  comparison,  but  it 
215 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

seems  to  state  the  case  fairly.  And  yet,  how  can  a 
naturaUst  fall  back  upon  teleology?  Is  not  Nature 
suflBcient  unto  herself?  Must  we  inject  our  own  little 
methods  and  makeshifts  into  the  ways  of  the  Eter- 
nal? We  might  as  well  try  to  walk  off  the  sphere  as 
try  to  compass  this  problem  in  the  terms  of  our 
own  experience.  The  inscrutable,  the  unthinkable, 
the  unknowable,  confront  us  on  all  sides. 

So  far  as  I  can  see  the  Creative  Energy  in  nature 
has  no  plan  nor  end.  Plans  are  the  ways  of  the  finite, 
not  of  the  Infinite.  Man  alone  has  plans  and  ends. 
The  Infinite  cannot  be  defined  or  interpreted  in 
terms  of  our  human  lives.  It  transcends  all  speech. 
To  name  any  one  thing  as  the  purpose  and  end  of 
creation  is  like  naming  the  end  of  a  sphere,  or  the 
direction  of  a  circle.  All  bodies  with  which  we  deal 
on  the  earth  have  an  upper  and  an  under  side,  but 
the  earth  itself  is  all  top  side;  there  is  no  under  side, 
though  the  orbs  in  the  heavens,  to  our  eye,  have  a 
lowest  point  or  bottom  side.  Every  tangible  body 
with  which  we  deal  rests  upon  some  other  body,  but 
the  orbs  float  in  vacuity.  The  irregular  solid  bodies 
with  which  we  deal  have  three  dimensions  —  length, 
breadth,  and  thickness  —  but,  properly  speaking, 
the  sphere  has  none  of  these;  it  has  only  mass. 

When  we  discuss  or  attempt  to  describe  what  we 

call  God,  or  what  I  call  the  Eternal,  in  terms  of  man, 

as  the  theologians  do,  something  within  us  rises  up 

and  says,  No.  A  magnified  man,  or  a  man  raised  to 

216 


HORIZON  LINES 

the  nth  power,  is  not  God;  he  is  still  man.  I  fancy 
that  with  most  men  the  denial  of  a  God  means  sim- 
ply this :  there  is  no  God  who  can  be  described  in  the 
terms  usually  employed.  One  is  an  atheist  because 
he  cannot  accept  a  God  made  in  man's  image.  It  be- 
littles the  Mystery.  Our  belief  in  God  is  so  radical 
that  we  reject  half-gods.  The  fatherhood  of  God 
means  no  more  than  the  manhood  of  God,  or  the 
governorship,  or  the  judgeship,  of  God. 

In  many  respects  the  manlike  God  falls  below  his 
human  prototype,  being  more  cruel  than  any  hu- 
man being  dares  to  be. 

No,  we  cannot  measure  the  Infinite  Mystery  with 
our  foot-rule.  Boundless  space  is  the  negation  of 
space.  We  can  say  that  there  is  no  space  in  the  sense 
that  we  can  say  that  there  is  no  God.  There  is  no 
motion  unless  there  is  something  at  rest;  there  is  no 
Infinite  Good  unless  there  is  Infinite  Evil.  Hence  we 
have  invented  a  hell  to  balance  heaven,  a  Devil  to 
offset  God. 

The  universe  is  a  reality,  though  we  cannot  define 
it.  Life  goes  on,  though  we  cannot  account  for  it. 
Boundless  space  exists,  though  words  fail  us  in  the 
attempt  to  fathom  it.  The  earth  has  its  center, 
though  we  do  not  know  whether  we  should  be  stand- 
ing on  our  heads  or  our  heels  were  we  to  reach  it. 
Heavenly  bodies  do  coUide,  though  we  cannot  visu- 
aUze  the  collision.  Our  language  fails  us  when  we 
come  to  the  ultimate  questions. 
217 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

That  this  is  the  best  possible  world,  humanly 
speaking,  I  have  no  doubt,  yet  sin  and  misery  are 
on  every  hand.  Sin  and  misery  are  terms  of  our 
own  which  simply  express  some  of  the  conditions  of 
our  development.  They  are  like  the  terms  "up" 
and  "down,"  "east"  and  "west,"  and  "near"  and 
"far";  they  are  relative.  Nature  knows  no  good  and 
no  bad;  all  is  good;  that  is,  all  favors  development. 
The  rivers  reach  the  sea,  no  matter  what  the  obsta- 
cles in  the  way.  The  seasons  come  and  go,  no  matter 
how  delayed. 

Nature's  ends,  so  far  as  we  can  name  them,  are 
wholesale  —  to  keep  the  game  going,  to  heap  the 
measure,  to  play  one  hand  against  the  other.  She  is 
more  solicitous  about  the  race  than  about  the  indi- 
vidual. The  wreck  of  worlds  or  suns  in  sidereal  space 
matters  little;  there  are  infinite  worlds  and  suns  left. 
What  would  really  matter  would  be  failure  of  celes- 
tial mechanics.  The  eclipse  of  the  sun  and  the  moon 
occurring  exactly  on  time,  "without  the  untruth  of 
a  single  second,"  tells  how  perfectly  the  great  ma- 
chine runs.  The  eclipse  itself  is  an  accident,  but  a 
harmless  one;  it  is  not  a  necessity  in  the  movements 
of  our  system. 

If  man  is  the  end  of  things,  as  we  would  fain  be- 
lieve, then  why  was  he  so  long  a-coming?  Why  will 
he  as  surely  disappear  from  the  earth?  Why  has  he 
not  come  to  other  planets  in  our  system?  When  he 
disappears  from  our  solar  system,  will  not  the  great 
218 


HORIZON  LINES 

procession  go  on  just  the  same  without  him?  No 
doubt  of  it.  lie  is  only  an  incident,  and  maybe  an 
accident  —  a  lucky  throw  of  the  dice. 

V.    IS  THERE  DESIGN  IN  NATURE? 

We  cannot  put  to  Nature  the  direct  questions  we 
put  to  ourselves.  ]S{amable  purposes  and  designs  rule 
jour  lives.  Not  so  with  the  All.  I  told  Father  Good- 
man the  other  day,  much  to  his  bewilderment,  that 
I  did  not  think  the  air  was  made  for  us  to  breathe, 
nor  the  water  for  us  to  drink,  nor  food  for  us  to  eat. 
We  breathe  and  drink  and  eat  because  our  organiza- 
tion is  adjusted  to  these  things.  The  shoe  is  made 
over  the  last,  not  the  last  to  fit  the  shoe.  The  organi- 
zation is  fitted,  or  fits  itself,  to  its  environment.  Na^ 
ture  is  first,  man  is  afterwards.  Is  the  notch  in  the 
mountain  made  for  the  road  to  go  through?  Is  the 
land-locked  harbor  made  to  protect  our  shipping? 
Would  it  not  be  as  true  to  say  that  the  wind  was 
made  to  fill  the  ship's  sails,  as  that  air  was  made  to 
fill  our  lungs?  In  deaHng  with  this  question  of  design 
many  persons  get  the  cart  before  the  horse. 

Of  course  there  is  purpose  or  design  in  living 
things  in  a  sense  that  there  is  not  in  the  non-Hving. 
Every  part  of  a  living  organization  is  purposeful. 
There  is  purpose  in  our  lungs,  our  hearts,  our  kid- 
neys, in  short  in  every  part  of  our  bodies.  There  is 
purpose  in  the  varnish  on  leaves,  in  the  down  and 
resin  on  buds,  in  the  wings  and  hooks  of  seeds,  in  the 
219 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

colors  of  flowers  and  of  animals,  in  fact,  in  every- 
thing that  makes  for  the  well-being  of  living  things. 
But  not  in  the  same  sense  is  there  purpose  in  the 
wind,  the  rain,  the  snow,  the  tides,  the  heat,  the 
cold,  the  rocks,  the  soil,  the  fountains.  Animate  na- 
ture struggles;  inanimate  nature  passively  submits. 
Dead  matter  forever  seeks  an  equilibrium;  living 
matter  forever  struggles  against  an  equilibrium. 
The  waters  separate  the  clay  and  the  sand  and  the 
pebbles  from  the  soil  and  deposit  each  in  its  own 
place;  but  it  is  not  a  struggle  or  an  effort;  it  is  me- 
chanical adjustment.  It  is  not  an  effort  for  certain 
liquids  to  form  crystals,  or  for  certain  elements  to 
combine  with  certain  other  elements  and  form  new 
compounds,  but  it  is  an  effort  for  a  tree  to  resist  the 
wind,  to  lift  up  tons  of  water  and  minerals  against 
gravity,  to  force  its  roots  through  the  soil  or  grip 
the  rock,  and  it  is  an  effort  for  the  mother  to  bear 
and  nurse  her  young.  For  anything  to  live  and  grow, 
effort  is  needful;  not  commonly  a  painful  effort,  but 
a  joyous  one. 

So,  when  we  ask,  Is  there  design  in  Nature?  we 
must  make  clear  what  part  or  phase  of  Nature  we 
refer  to.  Can  we  say  that  the  cosmos  as  a  whole 
shows  any  design  in  our  human  sense  of  the  word?  I 
think  not.  The  Eternal  has  no  purpose  that  our  lan- 
guage can  compass.  There  can  be  neither  center  nor 
circumference  to  the  Infinite.  The  distribution  of 
land  and  water  on  the  globe  cannot  be  the  result  of 
220 


HORIZON  LINES 

design  any  more  than  can  the  sliapes  of  the  hills  and 
mountams,  or  Saturn's  rings,  or  Jupiter's  moons. 
The  circular  forms  and  orbits  of  the  universe  must 
be  the  result  of  the  laws  of  matter  and  force  that 
prevail  in  celestial  mechanics;  this  is  not  a  final 
solution  of  the  riddle,  but  is  as  near  as  we  can  come 
to  it.  One  question  stands  on  another  question,  and 
that  on  another,  and  so  on,  and  the  bottom  question 
we  can  never  reach  and  formulate.  The  earth  rests 
on  nothing  and  floats  as  lightly  as  a  feather.  All 
matter  is  probably  only  a  phase  of  the  ether,  but  the 
ether  defies  all  proof  and  all  negation. 

How  quickly  we  get  where  no  step  can  be  taken ! 
We  cannot  step  off  the  planet,  though  we  may  step 
off  from  every  object  on  its  surface.  There  is  no  heat 
in  sunlight  till  it  reaches  the  earth ;  heat  is  an  experi- 
ence of  our  bodies,  and  beings  on  the  remotest  plan- 
ets, if  there  are  any,  may  and  must  receive  adequate 
heat,  and  beings  on  Mercury  and  Venus  no  more. 
Terrestrial  physics  and  celestial  physics  must  be  the 
same,  and  yet  celestial  mechanics  find  no  place  on 
the  surface  of  our  planet.  The  laws  of  the  cosmos 
bring  to  naught  our  mundane  conceptions.  Where 
are  up  and  down,  east  and  west,  over  and  under,  out 
in  sidereal  space .f*  We  balk  at  perpetual  motion,  yet 
in  the  heavens,  and  in  the  interior  of  matter,  behold 
perpetual  motion!  Behold  motion  without  friction 
and  energy  without  waste  or  dissipation!  On  the 
earth  every  visible  body  rests  on  some  other  body, 
221 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

everything  has  a  beginning  and  an  end,  but  where  is 
the  beginning  or  the  ending  of  the  cosmos?  Where, 
then,  in  this  quest  do  we  touch  bottom?  Nowhere. 
There  is  no  bottom.  Only  measurable,  finite  things 
have  bottoms  and  bounds.  The  immeasurable,  the 
Infinite,  is  over  us  and  under  us,  and  our  lives  are 
like  sparks  against  the  night.  But,  just  as  we  live  in 
the  heavens  and  do  not  know  it,  so  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being  in  the  Eternal.  It  is  not  afar  off; 
it  is  here;  we  are  a  part  of  it,  and  as  inseparable  from 
it  as  from  gravity. 

We  are  not  like  beings  who  have  moved  into  a 
house,  made  and  furnished  and  provisioned  in  antici- 
pation of  our  coming.  We  are  creatures  born  in  a 
house,  or  amid  an  environment  to  which  we  must 
slowly  and  more  or  less  painfully  fit  ourselves.  We 
are  the  consequent,  not  the  antecedent.  In  a  differ- 
ent world  we  should  have  been  differently  consti- 
tuted. In  a  bigger  world  no  doubt  our  bodies  would 
have  been  bigger  and  our  strength  greater;  with  less 
or  with  more  oxygen  in  the  air,  no  doubt  our  lungs 
would  have  been  different.  With  less  light  no  doubt 
our  eyes  would  have  been  larger,  and  with  more  light 
they  would  probably  have  been  smaller.  We  do  not 
feel  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere,  but  make  the 
pressure  more  or  less,  and  we  are  at  once  disturbed. 
The  deep-sea  fishes  fairly  explode  when  brought  to 
the  surface,  and  no  doubt  the  surface  fishes  would 
be  crushed  in  the  deep  sea  bottoms.  Just  as  we  ad- 
222 


HORIZON  LINES 

just  our  flying  machines  to  the  tenuity  of  the  air, 
and  our  oversea  and  undersea  boats  to  the  density 
and  weight  of  the  water,  so  Nature  adjusts  her 
organisms  to  their  environment. 

Man  avails  himself  of  all  possible  aids.  His  volun- 
tary conquests  of  nature  are  many  and  are  con- 
stantly increasing,  but  his  involuntary  dependen- 
cies upon  her  are  many  also.  He  did  not  launch  him- 
self into  this  world,  and  he  did  not  give  his  body, 
with  all  its  wonderful  organs  and  powers,  the  shape 
it  has,  or  elect  to  breathe  or  see  or  hear  or  breed  or 
eat  or  sleep.  Something  else  determined  all  these 
things  for  him.  What  is  that  something  else.''  Our 
fathers  called  it  God;  we  call  it  Nature,  because  we 
live  in  a  scientific  and  not  in  a  theological  age.  We 
are  pantheistic  and  not  theistic.  Our  gods  are  every- 
where, in  everything  created.  Our  minds  are  no 
longer  hampered  by  the  idea  of  a  maker  and  a  thing 
made,  a  ruler  or  a  governor  and  a  thing  ruled  or 
governed.  The  unity  of  Nature  and  God  is  a  concep- 
tion fostered  by  science.  We  are  compelled  to  adjust 
our  minds  to  the  idea  of  a  causeless  universe,  to 
a  universe  without  beginning  and  without  ending, 
without  a  maker  or  a  designer. 

Our  conception  of  cause  and  effect,  or  beginning 
and  ending,  applies  only  on  the  surface  of  the  earth; 
where  currents  and  counter-currents,  action  and  re- 
action and  interaction,  are  in  perpetual  see-saw; 
where  every  body  rests  upon  some  other  body,  and 
223 


'  ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

every  cause  has  its  antecedent  cause;  where  we  can 
live  only  by  dealing  with  parts  and  fragments,  and 
by  separating  one  thing  from  another.  The  astro- 
nomic laws  and  conditions,  or  our  conceptions  of 
them,  are  thrown  into  confusion  the  moment  we  try 
to  apply  them  in  our  practical  mundane  lives.  In 
vain  we  try  to  abolish  friction  and  achieve  perpetual 
motion,  but  the  heavenly  bodies  move  without 
friction,  and  move  forever  and  ever.  Motion  is  the 
prime  condition  of  the  universe.  It  is  the  condition 
or  necessity  we  are  under  in  this  world,  on  the  sur- 
face of  this  planet,  that  sets  us  on  the  quest  of  final 
causes  and  gives  rise  to  oiir  conceptions  of  the  made 
and  the  maker,  the  good  and  the  bad,  the  end  and 
the  beginning.  We  cannot  say  that  we  are  watched 
over  by  the  gods  —  our  personification  of  the  uni- 
versal mind  that  pervades  nature  —  nor  that  we 
are  not  watched  over  by  them,  because  that  were  to 
use  the  language  of  our  surface  existence.  All  we  can 
say  is  that  we  are  a  part  of  the  cosmos,  fragments  of 
the  total  scheme  of  things,  and  share  its  laws  and 
conditions,  and  that  the  more  perfectly  we  adjust 
the  nature  within  us  to  the  nature  without  us,  the 
better  we  fare.  With  the  Infinite  there  is  no  time 
and  no  space,  only  an  everlasting  here,  an  everlast- 
ing now. 

Yet  how  can  puny  man  interpret  the  universe  or 
say  aught  of  it  in  terms  of  his  mundane  experiences? 


224 


HORIZON  LINES 

VI.    OUR  IMPARTIAL  MOTHER 

The  laws  and  processes  of  Nature  which  to  us  are  so 
beneficent,  and  which  seem  made  for  our  especial 
benefit,  were  in  full  operation  before  life  as  we  know 
it  had  become  established.  In  fact,  the  fatherhood 
and  motherhood  of  Nature  are  all  thoughts  of  our 
own,  inventions  of  our  necessities.  The  paternity  of 
gravitation  and  the  maternity  of  frost  and  snow  are 
in  no  respect  different.  We  are  the  chance  children 
—  chance  from  our  limited  point  of  view  —  of  an 
impersonal,  unhuman,  universal  mother.  We  may 
say,  humanly  speaking,  that  Nature  takes  fore- 
thought of  her  children,  but  not  afterthought.  She 
provides  that  they  shall  actually  appear  in  due  time 
in  this  universe  of  conflicting  and  struggling  forces, 
then  lets  them  shift  for  themselves.  They  are  bom 
on  the  firing-line,  in  the  field  of  perpetual  war,  and 
none  escape  unscathed.  Indeed,  they  are  moulded 
and  adjusted  and  equipped  by  the  very  conditions 
in  which  the  peril  of  their  destruction  lies.  Gravity 
crushes  them,  and  gravity  gives  them  their  powers. 
Fire  consumes  them,  and  water  drowns  them,  and 
yet  out  of  these  things  they  came. 

It  is  as  if  some  god  had  planned  the  universe  as  a 
vast  plant  for  the  production  of  the  myriad  forms  of 
life,  each  in  its  own  place  and  season.  In  our  little 
corner  of  it  at  a  given  hour  of  the  great  geologic 
clock  one  form  appears,  or  many  forms;  at  another 
225 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

hour  other  forms  emerge,  till  man  himself  emerges 
as  the  culmination  of  a  long  line  of  lowly  forms, 
many  vestiges  of  which  still  cling  to  him.  But  the 
world  is  no  more  for  man  than  for  the  mice  and  ver- 
min that  pester  him.  It  is  for  all. 

The  mystery  back  of  all  —  what  shall  we  say  of 
it?  And  the  good  and  the  evil  that  are  so  inextricably 
blended  with  it  —  what  of  them? 

VII.    BAFFLING  TRUTHS 

The  grand  movements  of  Nature,  both  in  the  heav- 
ens and  in  the  earth,  are  on  such  a  scale  of  time  and 
distance  that  without  the  aid  of  science  we  could 
get  little  or  no  hint  of  them.  Immeasurably  slow  and 
slight  they  are,  according  to  our  standards.  The 
stars  are  fixed  points  in  the  sky  to  our  unaided 
vision.  Throughout  the  whole  historic  period  they 
have  shown  little  or  no  change  in  their  relative  posi- 
tions, though  they  are  moving  in  varying  directions 
at  the  rate  of  many  miles  a  second.  Come  back  in  a 
thousand  years  and  there  is  no  change;  in  thirty  or 
forty  thousand  years,  and  changes  of  place  might  be 
barely  perceptible  to  an  unaided  eye.  Not  till  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  years  would  Orion,  or  the 
Big  Dipper,  have  become  noticeably  distorted,  and 
probably  not  till  millions  of  years  would  the  heav- 
ens present  combinations  of  stars  forming  new  con- 
stellations. The  Pole  Star  will  after  millions  of  years 
probably  drift  far  from  its  present  position,  and  the 
226 


HORIZON  LINES 

Milky  Way  be  found  in  another  part  of  the  heavens. 
When  viewed  from  the  extreme  points  in  space  one 
hundred  and  eighty  millions  of  miles  apart  which  the 
earth's  orbit  around  the  sun  gives  us,the  fixed  stars  re- 
main fixed,  they  show  little  or  no  parallax.  To  touch 
but  the  skirts  of  the  Infinite  exhausts  our  powers. 

The  geological  changes  upon  the  surface  of  this 
earth  —  mere  mustard-seed  in  space  that  it  is  — 
are  on  such  a  scale  of  time  that  only  an  unfaltering 
scientific  faith  can  take  them  in.  The  mountains 
and  the  valleys  seem  eternal,  but  to  the  eye  of  the 
geologist  they  are  as  flitting  as  the  summer  clouds. 
Look  upon  a  Catskill  landscape  with  its  long,  flow- 
ing mountain-lines  curving  over  summits  three  or 
four  thousand  feet  high,  and  its  deep,  broad,  cradle- 
like valleys  checkered  with  fertile  farms  and  home- 
steads, and  try  to  think  of  it  as  all  the  work  of  the 
slow  and  gentle  rains  and  snows  —  geologic  time 
stroking  them  almost  as  gently  as  a  mother  caresses 
her  baby.  Tried  by  human  standards  we  live  in  a 
stable  universe;  change  stops  with  the  hills  and  the 
stars;  but,  tried  by  geologic  and  astronomic  stand- 
ards, it  is  as  unsubstantial  as  the  snows  of  winter  or 
the  dews  of  summer.  Perpetual  flux  and  transition 
mark  even  the  stars  in  their  courses.  Astronomers 
calculate  the  weight  of  the  earth  in  terms  of  its  own 
tons,  something  like  six  sextillion  tons,  but  in  and  of 
itself  it  weighs  nothing;  its  weight  is  the  pull  of 
some  other  body,  in  itself  pound  balances  pound;  it 
227 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

is  only  by  detachment  from  it  that  bodies  have 
weight.  As  we  approach  the  center,  a  pomid  would 
be  less  and  less;  halfway  down  it  would  weigh  eight 
ounces  only;  at  the  center  weight  would  disappear, 
the  pull  of  matter  on  all  sides  would  be  equal,  there 
would  no  longer  be  up  or  down.  Gravitation  is  not  a 
demon  at  the  center  of  the  earth,  pulling  all  things 
toward  him;  it  is  a  force  in  everj^  atom,  pulling  and 
being  pulled  in  every  direction.  Seek  the  center  of 
the  pulhng,  and  all  power  vanishes. 

The  globe  is  on  such  a  scale  of  size  with  reference 
to  our  Hves  and  powers  that  by  no  eflfort  of  the  imag- 
ination can  we  adjust  ourselves  to  the  contradic- 
tions presented.  It  is  not  by  experience,  norby  Uving 
and  acting,  that  we  know  it  as  a  sphere,  but  by 
thinking  and  speculating.  Even  if  we  travel  round 
it,  we  get  no  other  impression  than  that  it  is  an  end- 
less plain.  We  find  no  under  side;  it  is  all  top  side. 
The  practical  inferences  we  draw  from  looking  at 
the  moon  are  all  contradicted  by  our  experiences 
here.  The  lower  limb  of  the  moon  is  not  lower,  as  we 
should  find  if  we  were  to  go  there,  and  the  under 
side  of  the  earth  is  also  the  upper  side. 

Our  astronomy  is  sound,  but  our  actual  life  gives 
us  no  clue  to  its  truths.  Only  when  we  turn  philoso- 
phers do  we  know  the  tremendous  voyage  we  are 
making,  and  then  we  only  know  it  abstractly.  We 
never  can  know  it  concretely.  The  swift  turning  of 
the  planet  under  our  feet,  and  its  enormous  speed  in 
228 


HORIZON  LINES 

its  orbit  around  the  sun,  are  not  revealed  to  our 
sense  as  motion,  but  as  changes  from  night  to  day 
and  from  one  season  to  another.  Slow,  soft,  still,  the 
moon  and  the  sun  rise  and  drift  across  the  heavens, 
and  the  impassive  earth  seems  like  a  ship  becalmed. 
No  hint  at  all  of  the  more  than  rifle-bullet  speed 
through  space.  It  is  all  too  big  for  us.  The  celestial 
machine  is  no  machine  at  all  to  our  senses,  but  its 
vast  movements  go  on  as  gently  and  as  easily  as  the 
falling  of  the  dew  or  the  blooming  of  the  flowers, 
and  almost  as  unconsciously  to  us  as  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  in  our  hearts. 

We  are  in  the  heavens  and  are  a  part  of  the  great 
astronomical  whirl  and  procession,  and  know  it  not. 
It  is  symbolical  of  our  lives  generally.  We  do  not 
realize  that  we  are  a  part  of  Nature  till  we  begin  to 
think  about  it.  Our  lives  proceed  as  if  we  were  two 
—  man  and  Nature  —  two  great  antagonistic  or 
contrary  facts,  but  the  two  are  one;  there  is  only 
Nature.  We  can  draw  circle  within  circle,  and  circle 
around  circle,  but  we  cannot  circumscribe  Nature. 
That  is  the  fact  over  all. 

As  struggling  human  beings  we  diverge  from  one 
another,  oppose  one  another,  defeat  one  another. 
All  our  differences  and  antagonisms  arise  from  our 
need  of  action  and  of  living.  The  lesson  of  the  sphere 
is  hard  to  learn,  hard  to  state.  Our  powers  of  detach- 
ment are  hardly  equal  to  it.  Our  lives  are  rounded 
by  the  great  astronomic  curves.  The  contradictions 
229 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

which  the  intellect  reveals,  the  unthinkable  myster- 
ies that  surround  us,  the  heavens  over  us,  the  earth 
under  us  always  —  the  relativity  of  all  things  — 
thus  does  thought  set  us  adrift  on  a  shoreless  sea. 

VIII.    SENSE  CONTRADICTIONS 

Bergson  says  that  we  are  in  trouble  the  moment 
we  think  of  a  creator  and  a  thing  created;  in  other 
words,  the  moment  we  apply  to  the  universe  as  a 
whole  the  concepts  which  our  practical  lives  yield 
us.  The  only  alternative  I  see  is  to  think  of  the  uni- 
verse as  uncreated,  which,  I  confess,  does  not  make 
the  problem  much  easier.  I  try  to  help  myself  out  by 
saying  that  our  concepts  are  formed  in  a  world 
in  which  we  deal  with  parts  and  fragments,  lines 
and  angles  on  the  surface  of  a  sphere,  and  not  with 
the  sphere  as  a  whole.  Our  senses  do  not  reveal 
the  earth  to  us  as  a  globe,  but  as  a  boundless  plain 
with  no  under  side;  we  find  no  limits,  and  if  we  con- 
tinue our  search  long  enough,  we  come  back  to  the 
place  from  which  we  set  out,  but  from  the  opposite 
direction. 

When  we  try  to  think  in  terms  of  spheres  and 
solar  systems,  our  everyday  concepts  avail  us  very 
little;  in  fact,  they  set  us  down  wrong-end  up.  We 
look  at  the  moon  or  the  sun  and  we  say,  Surely  if  we 
were  at  the  South  Pole  of  either  of  these  bodies,  we 
should  be  as  truly  on  the  under  side  of  it  as  the  fly  is 
when  it  ahghts  at  the  South  Pole  of  the  globe  in  our 
230 


HORIZON  LINES 

study.  We  should  be  in  a  position  opposite  to  that 
which  we  should  occupy  at  the  North  Pole.  That 
every  point  on  the  surface  of  a  cosmic  sphere  should 
be  on  top,  or  rather  that  there  should  be  no  top,  and 
no  bottom;  that  these  concepts  should  be  abolished; 
that  if  two  inhabited  globes  should  come  in  collision, 
each  would  seem  to  the  people  upon  the  other  to 
be  falling  down  out  of  the  heavens  upon  them;  that 
out  in  sidereal  space  not  even  the  Huns  could  drop 
bombs,  or  send  up  balloons,  because  there  would  be 
no  up  and  no  down  —  when  we  grasp  these  facts,  I 
say,  we  are  at  the  end  of  our  tether;  we  not  only  do 
not  know  "where  we  are  at,"  but  we  find  there  is  no 
"at."  Our  minds  can  deal  with  the  cosmos  only  in 
an  abstract  or  mathematical  way.  As  a  concrete 
fact  even  our  little  earth  is  too  much  for  us.  Not 
merely  too  big,  it  contradicts  all  our  experience.  If 
we  could  build  a  sphere  a  mile  through,  or  ten  miles 
or  a  hundred  miles,  or  ten  thousand  miles  through, 
could  we  stand  upon  it  at  the  South  Pole?  When  we 
think  of  the  daily  revolutions  of  the  earth  upon  its 
axis,  we  are  compelled  to  think  of  it  as  turning  over, 
because  it  brings  the  sun  above  us  by  day  and  be- 
neath us  by  night,  and  hence  the  puzzle  to  the  un- 
lettered mind  as  to  why  the  lakes  and  ponds  do  not 
all  spill  out. 

Among  the  heavenly  bodies  other  laws  prevail; 
there  is  motion  without  friction  or  dissipation  of 
energy;  there  is  no  body  at  rest;  there  is  no  motion 
231 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

in  right  lines,  but  only  in  curved  lines;  there  is  no 
beginning  nor  ending;  there  is  only  eternal  progres- 
sion; and  this  is  a  condition  of  things  that  throws 
our  mental  adjustments  all  out  of  gear.  The  prob- 
lem of  God,  the  problem  of  creation,  the  problem  of 
future  life,  throw  our  mental  adjustments  out  of 
gear  in  the  same  way. 

There  is  order  and  harmony  in  our  own  solar  sys- 
tem and  doubtless  in  countless  others  in  the  im- 
mensity of  space,  but  the  cosmos  as  a  whole  does 
not  seem  to  present  this  harmony,  as  collisions  actu- 
ally occur.  Astronomers  teU  us  that  the  units  of  the 
starry  hosts  are  moving  in  all  directions  and  that 
collisions  are  inevitable,  though  at  such  vast  inter- 
vals, owing  to  the  inconceivable  spaces,  that  human 
time  can  take  no  note  of  them.  A  billion  of  our  years, 
like  a  billion  of  our  miles,  count  for  but  little  in  the 
infinitudes  of  the  universe. 

When  we  try  to  think  that  the  universe  had  a 
cr^tor,  that  there  was  a  time  when  it  did  not  exist, 
that  it  was  called  into  being  by  a  power  apart  from 
itself,  do  we  not  fall  down  completely?  We  can,  of 
course,  think  in  arbitrary  terms;  our  imaginations 
are  equal  to  almost  any  feat  (Lewis  Carroll's  was 
equal  to  "Alice  in  Wonderland";  Dante's  was  equal 
to  making  the  world  shudder  over  his  pictures  of  the 
inferno) :  but  the  understanding  has  to  have  solid 
ground  to  go  upon,  and  where  is  the  solid  ground 
in  our  idea  of  creation?  We  are  off  the  sphere,  alone 
232 


HORIZON  LINES 

in  space,  face  to  face  with  the  Infinite,  and  we  have 
no  language  in  which  to  express  ourselves. 

IX.    MAN  A  PART  OF  NATUBE 

We  habitually  think  or  speak  of  ourselves  as  some- 
thing apart  from  Nature,  as  belonging  to  some 
higher  order  of  reality,  when,  in  fact,  we  are  as  much 
a  part  of  the  total  scheme  of  things  as  are  the  trees 
and  the  beasts  of  the  field.  True,  we  are  separated 
from  them  by  a  gulf,  but  the  gulf  has  been  bridged, 
and  bridged  by  Nature,  and  both  sides  are  equally 
her  territory. 

Nature  is  the  one  supreme  reality,  the  sum  total 
of  the  visible  and  invisible  bodies  and  forces  that 
surround  us,  out  of  which  we  came  and  of  which  we 
form  a  part.  Nature  is  all  things  to  all  men,  because 
she  is  the  larger  fact,  and  holds  an  infinite  diversity 
in  an  all-embracing  unity. 

When  we  come  to  look  upon  man  in  this  light, 
when  we  see  his  whole  civihzation  and  all  his 
achievements  upon  the  earth  —  his  science,  his 
philosophy,  his  art,  his  rehgion,  yea,  his  follies  and 
crimes  and  superstitions,  his  wars  and  hatreds,  as 
well  as  his  heroism  and  devotion  —  as  parts  of  Na- 
ture, as  expressions  of  the  same  total  cosmic  energy 
as  are  all  things  else,  we  have  gained  an  astronomic 
point  of  view;  we  see  things  in  orbic  completeness. 

Nature  is  all-inclusive.  We  cannot  draw  a  circle 
around  that  circle.  We  have  so  long  been  wont  to 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

solve  our  riddles  by  invoking  the  supernatural  that 
the  habit  has  become  ingrained.  We  can  only  do  as 
Carlyle  did,  feed  our  minds  with  words  and  fall  back 
upon  the  natural-supernatural. 

Our  attitudes  toward  Nature  differ  as  widely  as 
do  our  occupations,  our  characters,  and  our  tem- 
peraments. There  is  the  direct,  practical  attitude  of 
the  farmer,  the  miner,  the  engineer,  the  sailor,  the 
sportsman,  the  traveler,  and  the  explorer;  there  is 
the  gay  and  holiday  attitude  of  the  camper-out  and 
the  picnicker;  there  is  the  sympathetic  and  appre- 
ciative attitude  of  the  nature-lover;  there  is  the 
imaginative  and  creative  attitude  of  the  artist  and 
the  poet;  there  is  the  more  or  less  rapt  and  mystical 
attitude  of  the  religious  enthusiast;  there  is  the  in- 
quisitive and  experimental  attitude  of  the  man  of 
science;  and  there  is  the  meditative  and  speculative 
attitude  of  the  philosopher. 

We  almost  invariably  personify  Nature  and  read 
our  own  traits  and  limitations  into  her.  We  say  she 
is  wise  or  she  is  foolish;  she  is  cruel  or  she  is  kind; 
she  fails  or  she  succeeds.  The  early  philosophers 
said  that  Nature  abhorred  a  vacuum.  Darwin  says 
that  she  "  tells  us  in  the  most  emphatic  manner  that 
she  abhors  perpetual  self-fertiHzation."  There  are 
times  when  the  most  rigid  man  of  science  humanizes 
Nature  in  this  way.  We  look  upon  ourselves  as  tak- 
ing liberties  with  her;  we  discipline  her  and  train  her 
in  the  ways  she  should  go  for  our  good;  we  pit  her 
234. 


HORIZON  LINES 

forces  against  one  another.  Her  flowers,  her  birds,  her 
sunsets,  her  rainbows,  her  waterfalls,  her  mountain 
lakes,  her  ocean-shores,  her  midnight  skies,  at  times 
move  us  and  lift  us  above  ourselves.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  are  times  when  we  frown  upon  her,  or 
despitefuUy  use  her  and  call  her  hard  names.  When 
her  storms  or  her  frosts  or  her  blights  or  her  droughts 
or  her  insect  hordes  destroy  our  crops,  or  lay  waste 
our  forests  or  sweep  away  our  buildings  or  kill  our  cat- 
tle or  inundate  our  towns  and  villages,  we  instinc- 
tively look  upon  her  as  our  enemy,  and,  so  far  as  we 
are  able,  arm  ourselves  against  her.  Emerson  speaks 
of  Nature  as  that  "terrific  or  beneficent  force."  It 
is  both.  Indeed,  we  may  use  a  stronger  adjective 
and  say  that  at  times  it  is  a  malevolent  force. 

We  ascribe  all  our  human  qualities  and  traits  to 
Nature.  Indeed,  we  can  hardly  speak  of  her  without 
personifying  her.  As  we  are  a  part  of  her,  how  can 
we  fail  to  see  our  own  traits  in  her?  At  least,  how 
else  can  we  interpret  her  except  in  terms  of  our  own 
being?  Early  man  did  this  entirely.  All  the  natural 
forces  and  appearances  took  on  his  own  image,  and 
were  for  or  against  him.  When  we  seek  to  interpret 
Nature  we  still  do  it  in  the  terms  of  literature,  of 
poetry.  We  humanize  her,  which  means,  of  course, 
that  we  interpret  ourselves.  Nature  reflects  the 
spirit  we  bring  to  her.  She  ic  gay,  somber,  beautiful, 
winsome,  repellent,  wise  or  foolish,  just  in  the  de- 
gree in  which  we  ourselves  are  capable  of  these  emo- 
235 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

tions  or  possess  these  qualities.  She  is  terrifying  be- 
cause we  have  a  capacity  for  terror.  She  is  soothing 
when  we  are  in  a  mood  to  be  soothed.  She  is  sublime 
only  so  far  as  we  have  the  capacity  to  experience 
this  emotion. 

It  is  our  reactions  to  Nature  that  give  rise  to  the 
Quahties  we  ascribe  to  her.  The  music  of  the  seolian 
"narp  is  not  in  the  wind;  its  origin  is  the  reaction  of 
the  harp  to  the  wind,  but  it  is  not  music  until  it 
reaches  the  human  ear.  The  colors  of  the  landscape 
are  not  in  the  rocks  and  trees  and  waters,  but  in  the 
experiences  of  the  eye  when  the  vibrations  of  ether 
which  we  call  Ught  are  reflected  back  to  it  from 
these  objects. 

We  create  the  world  in  which  we  live.  I  love  Na- 
ture, but  Nature  does  not  love  me.  Love  is  an  emo- 
tion which  rocks  and  clouds  do  not  feel.  Nature 
loves  me  in  my  fellow  beings.  The  breezes  caress 
me,  the  morning  refreshes  me,  the  rain  on  the  roof 
soothes  me  —  that  is,  when  I  am  in  a  mood  to  be 
caressed  and  refreshed  and  soothed.  The  main  mat- 
ter is  the  part  I  play  in  these  things.  All  is  directed 
to  me  and  you  because  we  are  adjusted  to  all.  No 
more  is  the  kite  or  the  sail  adjusted  to  the  wind,  the 
water-wheel  to  the  falling  water,  than  are  we  ad- 
justed to  outward  Nature.  She  is  the  primary  and 
everlasting  fact;  we,  as  living  beings,  are  the  sec- 
ondary and  temporary  facts. 


236 


HORIZON  LINES 

X.   THE  FITTEST  TO  SURVIVE 

The  survival  of  the  fittest  does  not  mean  the  sur- 
vival of  the  best  from  the  human  point  of  view.  The 
lower  orders  of  humanity  are  better  fitted  to  survive 
than  the  higher  orders — hardier,  more  prolific,  hav- 
ing a  fuller  measure  of  life.  The  cultivated  plants 
—  wheat,  corn,  rye,  barley,  oats  —  are  less  fitted  to 
survive  than  what  we  call  weeds.  The  latter  can 
shift  for  themselves,  but  the  former  cannot. 

We  lament  the  decay  of  the  native  Anglo-Saxon 
stock  in  this  country,  and  the  increase  of  the  races 
from  southern  Europe  and  from  the  Orient.  They 
stand  our  pitiless  sunlight  better  than  do  the  de- 
scendants of  our  Puritan  ancestors.  From  our  point 
of  view  this  rule  of  natural  selection  will  not  result 
in  a  superior  race,  but  in  an  inferior;  not  in  better 
men,  but  in  better  animals.  Character  and  intellect 
win  in  those  fields  where  character  and  intellect 
tell,  but  where  muscle  and  brawn  and  vitality  tell 
more  they  fail. 

The  Japanese  have  great  power  of  survival;  they, 
are  hardv.  prolifiCf  anc]  pnsViing  Tlip  Germans  also 
have  great  survival  power,  greater  than  the  French; 
they  are  more  prolific,  more  materialistic,  nearer, 
the  brutes:  they  are  not  VianrHpapppf^  xY\\h  ynv^^ 
soul  They  are  jT'^^'^^^y  ^''"^  ^"^  ^'^^^Hlfr^^MftllY 
clejisi;,. Their  moral  blindness  and  insensibility  have 
resulted  in  their  downfall.  Great  Britain  leads  the 
237 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

European  nations  because  she  is  not  only  hardy  and 
prolific,  but  she  also  has  the  gift  of  empire:  she 
huildg^upon  law  and  order;  she  establishes  justice 
and  fair  play. 

In  the  Darwinian  sense  the  Jews  are  the  fittest  to 
survive  of  all  the  races  of  man.  They  are  prolific  and 
grasping;  they  will  always  get  what  belongs  to 
them,  and  a  little  more;  they  are  bound  to  possess 
the  earth.  The  only  drawback  I  see  is  that  they  do 
not  take  kindly  to  the  soil.  Trade  alone  will  not  give 
a  nation  the  supremacy. 

XI.    THE  POWER  OF  CHOICE 

Think  how  we  come  into  the  world,  what  an  impor- 
tant thing  it  is  to  each  of  us  and  to  the  world,  and 
yet  how  fortuitous  and  haphazard  it  all  is,  and  what 
precautions  are  often  taken  to  prevent  our  coming! 

See  the  deformed,  the  half-witted,  the  low- 
browed, the  degenerate,  that  come.  The  great  army 
of  the  common,  the  few  capable  of  higher  and  finer 
things.  Nature  apparently  finds  her  account  in  one 
class  the  same  as  in  the  other,  in  Pat  as  well  as  in 
Paul,  in  the  inferior  races  as  well  as  in  the  higher. 

In  our  manufacturing  affairs  we  aim  to  turn  out 
the  best  article  possible  —  the  best  shoe,  the  best 
hat,  the  best  gun,  the  best  book;  but  Nature  makes 
no  such  effort  in  the  case  of  man,  though  she  does  in 
the  case  of  the  lower  orders.  Probably  every  indi- 
vidual bird  or  bug  or  four-footed  beast  in  a  state  of 
£38 


HORIZON  LINES 

nature  is  perfect  of  its  kind,  that  is,  suited  to  its 
place  in  the  scheme  of  organic  life.  But  how  dif- 
ferent with  man!  It  is  the  price  he  pays  for  his 
freedom,  his  power  of  choice.  The  birds  and  the 
beasts  have  no  power  of  choice,  they  are  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  Nature.  They  are  all  moulded  to 
one  pattern. 

The  advantage  that  comes  to  man  from  his  power 
of  choice  is  greater  variation,  hence  greater  prog- 


ressJ3^e  crosses  or  reverses  or  turns  aside  the  laws  ^ 
of  Nature,  or  bends  them  to  his  will,  and  for  this 
privilege  he  pays  the  price  of  idiocy,  deformity,  and 
the  vast  mass  of  commonplace  humanity.  His^gajn 
is  now  and  then  men  of  exceptional  ability,  gen- 
iuses, who  lead  the  race  forward.  We  know  that 
every  improved  breed  of  chicken  or  sheep  or  swine 
will  come  true,  but  we  do  not  know  in  anything  like 
the  same  degree  of  certainty  that  the  Emersons  and 
the  Lincolns  and  the  Tennysons  will  repeat  and 
continue  the  type.  Cultivated  fruit  relapses  in  the 
seed,  and  cultivated  persons  often  do  the  same. 

On  the  other  hand,  rude  and  ordinary  humanity 
now  and  then  far  transcends  itself  in  its  offspring, 
just  as  the  new  and  choice  apple  or  peach  or  plum 
has  its  humble  origin  in  a  seedhng. 

XII.    ILLUSIONS 

In  his  "Conduct  of  Life"  Emerson  has  an  essay  on 

"Illusions"  in  which  he  describes  the  semblance  to 

239 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

midnight  skies  paved  with  stars  which  the  guide 
produces  in  the  Mammoth  Cave  by  hiding  himself 
and  throwing  the  rays  of  his  torch  athwart  the  ceil- 
ing set  thick  ^snth  transparent  rock  crystals.  The 
effect  is  quite  startling.  For  the  moment  it  is  hard  to 
resist  the  conviction  that  you  are  actually  looking 
upon  the  cloudless  sky  at  night.  But  in  reality  is  not 
the  noonday  sky  just  as  much  of  an  illusion,  except 
that  there  are  no  mimic  stars?  The  blue  dome  over- 
head is  an  illusion.  There  is  no  dome  there.  The 
sky  is  a  mere  apparition.  It  is  not  a  body  or  a 
reahty  as  it  seems  to  be;  it  is  mere  empty  space, 
though  it  has  the  effect  upon  us  of  a  vast  blue  dome. 
How  genial  and  inviting  it  looks  when  we  see  it 
peeping  through  the  clouds,  and  how  glorious  when 
we  see  it  swept  free  from  clouds!  Its  purity,  its 
serenity,  its  elevated  character,  move  us  to  regard 
it  as  the  abode  of  superior  beings.  The  telescope 
dispels  our  illusions;  the  sky  is  not  a  transparent 
realm,  but  only  an  extension  of  earthly  conditions. 
Heaven,  the  abode  of  the  blest,  takes  its  name  from 
this  negation  of  vacancy.  Our  notions  of  a  personal 
God  are  similar  illusions.  God  is  as  real  as  the  sky 
is,  and  no  more  so,  even  though  in  our  devout 
moods  we  lift  our  eyes  heavenward  and  identify  him 
with  this  comforting  illusion. 

All  our  life  illusions  brood  over  us.  The  night 
is  only  a  shadow  —  the  negation  of  hght;  and 
yet  it  plays  a  part  in  our  lives  as  real  as  that  of 
240 


HORIZON  LINES 

health  or  friends  or  climate,  as  real,  but  of  another 
kind. 

Time  itself  is  an  illusion.  The  future  does  not 
exist  nor  the  past;  yet  how  are  our  lives  influenced 
by  the  memory  of  the  one  and  our  anticipations  of 
the  other! 

The  world  is,  indeed,  full  of  illusion.  We  fancy 
that  luminous  bodies  shoot  out  rays  of  light  such  as 
we  appear  to  see  when  we  look  at  them.  We  see 
beams  and  scintillations  when  we  look  at  the  stars 
and  the  sun;  but  is  it  not  all  a  trick  of  the  eye?  The 
light  from  a  luminous  body  goes  out  in  all  directions, 
not  in  separated  rays,  but  as  vibrations  in  the  ether. 
When  we  throw  a  stone  into  a  still  pool  of  water  a 
wave  motion  is  set  up  which  spreads  in  concentric 
circles.  But  the  vibrations  called  "light,"  considered 
as  a  whole,  assume  the  form  of  a  sphere;  they  go 
from  the  luminous  body  to  every  point  of  a  hollow 
sphere.  We  see  a  star  as  a  bright  point  in  the  sky, 
but  if  the  universe  were  full  of  eyes,  every  eye  could 
see  that  star;  its  light  goes  to  every  point  of  the  hol- 
low sphere  of  Infinity.  But  no  more  than  does  the 
light  of  the  candle  in  your  hand,  or  the  lamp  on 
your  table  go  to  Infinity,  if  unobstructed.  Stars 
which  cannot  be  seen  by  the  most  powerful  tele- 
scope must  yet  radiate  their  light  into  infinite  space. 
Is  that  light  lost?  Modern  science  seems  to  hold  to 
the  view  that  in  the  ether  of  space  no  rays  of  light 
can  ever  be  lost.  What  becomes  of  them?  It  is  cer- 
241 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

tain  that  a  wavelet  in  a  lake  can  be  lost  if  the  lake  is 
large  enough.  It  soon  dies  out.  It  becomes  dissi- 
pated. Energy  cannot  be  destroyed,  but  it  can  be 
scattered  or  turned  into  heat  or  light  or  electricity, 
and  the  waves  that  break  and  die  upon  the  beach,  no 
matter  how  cold  they  are,  give  up  their  energy  as 
heat.  They  must  raise  the  temperature  some  frac- 
tion of  a  degree. 

XIII.    IS  NATURE  SUICIDAL  ? 

Emerson  never  committed  himself  to  a  belief  in  im- 
mortality as  usually  understood  —  continued  exist- 
ence in  another  world;  but  he  was  always  on  the 
lookout  for  hints  and  suggestions  to  spur  his  lagging 
faith  on  the  subject.  He  read  Martial  and  praised 
his  literary  faculty.  He  is  the  true  writer,  he  said,  a 
chemical  and  not  a  mechanical  mixture:  "Martial 
suggests  again,  as  every  purely  literary  book  does, 
the  immortality.  We  see  we  are  wiser  than  we  were: 
we  are  older.  Can  Nature  afford  to  lose  such  im- 
provements? Is  Nature  a  suicide?"  The  same  ques- 
tions I  have  heard  Whitman  ask,  questions  asked 
probably  by  thoughtful  men  in  all  ages. 

But  are  not  such  questions  prompted  by  our  own 
petty  economies?  We  must  save  what  we  have 
gained.  Not  so  Nature.  Gain  and  loss  with  her  are 
one.  All  is  hers.  She  has  infinite  time,  and  infinite 
abundance.  How  can  she  afford  so  many  dead  worlds 
and  burnt-out  suns  scattered  throughout  sidereal 
242 


HORIZON  LINES 

space,  like  boulders  in  a  New  England  field?  How 
can  she  afford  to  wait  millions  of  years  before  life 
comes  to  the  superior  planets,  if  it  ever  comes? 
What  economy  is  that  which  strews  the  way  of  evo- 
lution with  untold  numbers  of  extinct  species? 
What  economy  is  that  which  makes  one  species 
prey  upon  another?  —  which  undoes  with  one  hand 
what  she  achieves  with  the  other?  Nature  was  mil- 
lions of  years  in  bringing  man  out  of  the  earth, — 
the  end  and  flower  of  her  whole  scheme  from  our 
point  of  view,  —  and  probably  in  far  less  time  he 
will  have  disappeared  from  the  earth.  How  can 
she  afford  it?  "Is  Nature  suicidal?"  She  certainly 
is,  tried  by  our  standards.  Not  that  she  is  less  than 
we,  but  so  inconceivably  more.  She  plays  the  game 
for  her  own  amusement.  She  evaporates  the  rivers 
and  the  seas,  confident  that  the  water  will  come  back 
again.  She  keeps  the  currents  going;  the  ebb  and 
flow  never  cease.  Night  and  day,  life  and  death,  go 
hand  in  hand.  Her  "improvements"  are  improve- 
ments for  a  day,  an  hour,  a  moment  —  hke  snow- 
flakes  on  the  river  —  "a  moment  white,  then'  gone 
forever."  They  are  crystals  that  perish,  flowers  that 
fall.  Nature  knows  no  exhaustion;  she  can  repeat 
the  process  continuously.  Only  the  unlimited  is  in- 
exhaustible. The  infinite  goes  on  forever.  Our  eco- 
nomics pale  in  the  face  of  Nature's  prodigalities.  A 
race  like  the  Greeks  perishes,  and  Nature's  treasury 
is  still  full.  Every  spring  in  our  climate  the  marvel 
243 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

of  leaf  and  flower  is  repeated  in  the  plants  and  for- 
ests, and  every  fall  the  work  is  undone.  The  great, 
the  noble,  the  heroic,  youth,  age,  manhood,  woman- 
hood, fail  and  disappear,  and  still  the  game  goes  on. 
The  rivers  drain  the  hills  and  mountains,  and  still 
they  never  run  dry.  Spring  and  summer  do  not  ex- 
haust the  fertihty  of  Nature.  The  rivers  carry  the 
soil  into  the  sea,  but  they  do  not  carry  it  off 
the  globe.  We  cannot  defertihze  the  earth.  What 
the  seas  lose,  the  clouds  gain;  what  the  clouds  lose, 
the  earth  gains;  what  the  hills  lose,  the  sea  gains; 
and  so  the  circle  is  complete. 

Nature  has  her  own  economies  that  answer  to  our 
own.  In  the  use  of  means  to  an  end,  as  in  the  living 
world,  there  must  be  economy  of  time,  of  space,  of 
power;  there  must  be  adjustments,  compensations, 
and  so  on.  In  the  tropics  vegetation  takes  its  time. 
No  hurry;  the  heat  does  not  fail.  In  the  temperate 
zone  there  is  less  time,  and  the  pace  of  vegetation  is 
faster.  In  the  frigid  zone  it  is  faster  still,  the  time  is 
brief;  there  is  no  prodigahty  of  leaf  and  stalk  and 
flower;  hurry  up  is  the  cry.  The  stalk  is  short,  the 
flowering  is  brief,  the  goal  is  the  seed  which  must  be 
matured.  In  our  climate,  if  a  plant  gets  a  later  start, 
or  is  cut  down  and  compelled  to  bloom  again,  — 
for  example,  the  burdock,  —  how  it  hastens,  how  it 
pushes  out  its  seed-vessels  from  the  main  stalk! 
The  late  fall  dandelions  do  not  indulge  in  long 
stalks;  they  bloom  close  to  the  ground  and  develop 
244 


HORIZON  LINES 

their  down-seed  balloons  or  parachutes  at  once. 
In  the  Far  North  the  willow  and  birch  are  mere 
running  vines,  but  they  achieve  fruit. 

The  economy  of  living  nature  is  the  basis  of  our 
economy;  we  improve  upon  it,  we  take  a  short  cut, 
we  save  time  and  save  power.  We  trim  our  trees,  we 
remove  obstructions,  we  fertilize,  we  graft,  we  sow 
and  plant.  Nature  is  prodigal  of  her  spawn  and 
pollen  to  offset  the  element  of  chance  that  enters 
into  the  action  of  the  winds  and  the  waves. 

The  wild  creatures  have  their  instinctive  econo- 
mies and  ways  of  getting  on  in  the  world.  They  pre- 
pare for  the  winter;  they  provide  for  their  young; 
they  practice  the  arts  of  concealment;  they  are  wise 
for  their  own  good;  they  do  not  commit  suicide. 
The  plants  have  their  economies,  and  the  insects 
have  theirs,  but  when  we  talk  of  the  economy  of 
Nature,  we  are  beyond  soundings.  Nature  cannot 
spend  more  than  she  earns;  her  ledgers  always  bal- 
ance; her  capital  cannot  be  impaired.  There  is  no 
waste,  in  our  sense,  in  the  universe.  Can  you  de- 
stroy magnetism  by  pulverizing  the  magnet?  Would 
electricity  be  quenched  if  no  storm-cloud  ever  again 
appeared  in  the  sky? 

XIV.   THE  PEBSISTENCE  OF  ENERGY 

Is  it  not  reassuring  to  know  that  we  cannot  get  out 

of  the  universe  —  that  whatever  is  real  about  us 

cannot  be  destroyed,  but  can  only  suffer  change? 

245 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

All  the  elements  that  enter  into  my  body  must  per- 
sist; they  always  have  persisted  through  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  astronomic  and  geologic  time.  We 
are  as  sure  of  that  as  we  are  sure  of  anything,  and 
we  are  sure  that  they  will  continue  in  some  form  to 
exist.  We  believe  it  without  proof.  Our  scientific 
faith  carries  us  over  this  gulf  —  our  faith  in  the 
oneness  and  integrity  of  the  universe.  Is  there  any- 
thing real,  in  the  same  sense,  in  what  we  call  our 
minds  or  souls?  Huxley  was  convinced  that  con- 
sciousness was  as  real  as  matter  and  energy,  and 
must  persist  like  them  —  persist  in  other  persons 
who  follow  us;  but  how  about  our  individual  selves? 
And  how  about  consciousness  when  the  race  of  man 
becomes  extinct?  We  can  only  take  refuge  in  the 
thought  that  consciousness  will  dawn  and  continue 
in  other  worlds  through  all  time,  or  rather  endless 
time,  since  the  all  of  a  thing  implies  limits.  Equally 
to  make  consciousness  coeval  with  matter  and  en- 
ergy, we  must  think  of  it  as  having  existed  in  other 
w^orlds  throughout  an  endless  and  beginningless 
past.  But  my  consciousness  and  your  consciousness 
are  bound  up  with  certain  combinations  of  matter 
which  we  know  are  unstable  —  in  fact,  are  the  re- 
sult, in  a  sense,  of  their  instability,  their  ceaseless 
change. 

In  the  final  change,  which  we  call  death,  what 
happens  to  consciousness?  When  we  try  to  think  of 
it  in  terms  of  our  actual  experience  with  tangible 
£46 


HORIZON  LINES 

bodies,  we  think  of  it  as  gone  out,  non-existent,  as 
truly  so  as  is  the  flame  of  the  candle  when  we  blow 
it  out,  or  as  is  the  star  form  of  the  snowflake  when 
it  is  melted.  Does  it  help  us  any  to  think  of  the  soul, 
or  consciousness,  in  terms  of  the  imponderable  bod- 
ies —  light,  electricity,  radio-activity?  Do  all  these 
wireless  messages  that  go  forth  into  the  air,  go  on 
forever?  Do  these  impulses  reach  the  farthest  stars, 
and  still  persist?  Do  our  thoughts  persist  upon  the 
ether?  Here,  in  this  room,  here  in  this  air  that  you 
may  inclose  with  your  two  hands,  are  vibrating 
wireless  messages  from  far  and  near,  though  we  are 
not  able  to  detect  them.  Here  also  the  ether  may  be 
tremulous  with  the  thoughts  of  our  friends  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe,  yes,  and  with  the  thoughts  of 
our  friends  who  have  ceased  to  live,  as  we  Imow  life. 
The  ether  of  space  may  still  be  vibrating  with  the 
thoughts  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  of  Moses  and  Solo- 
mon. 

Do  we  impress  ourselves  momentarily  upon  the 
ether  around  us,  and  is  this  what  the  mediums  and 
the  clairvoyants  recover?  Is  the  persistence  of  our 
thoughts  upon  the  ether  the  secret  of  the  mind- 
reader's  art,  and  of  all  the  marvelous  things  dis- 
closed by  psychic  research?  Is  this  the  only  immor- 
tality, the  immortality  of  the  endless  persistence 
of  vibrations  from  our  brains?  Or  must  we  think 
of  our  personalities  as  disembodied  and  drifting 
about  as  separate  entities  in  the  great  Nowhere? 
247 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Though  a  dreamer  and  an  idealist,  I  am  only 
truly  interested  in  a  natural  explanation  of  things 
—  an  explanation  that  is  in  harmony  with  our  ex- 
periences in  this  world.  The  so-called  supernatural 
explanation  does  not  interest  me  at  all.  We  cannot 
grasp  it  and  bring  it  to  the  test  of  reason  and  experi- 
ence. It  is  like  a  bridge  with  one  or  more  spans  miss- 
ing —  only  faith  can  carry  us  over,  and  faith  that 
has  nothing  to  stand  upon  cannot  really  carry  us 
over.  It  travels  in  a  circle,  and  leaves  us  where  it 
found  us. 

Energy  is  certainly  one  of  the  realities  of  the  cos- 
mos, though  we  may  not  be  able  to  form  a  concept 
of  it  as  we  do  of  matter.  We  cannot  visualize  it.  We 
know  it  only  through  its  effects  upon  tangible  bod- 
ies. Why  may  there  not  be  a  principle  of  life  or  vi- 
tality as  real  as  is  energy  —  another  form  of  energy 
which  we  can  know  only  through  its  effects  upon 
matter;  inseparably  bound  up  with  matter  as  en- 
ergy is;  not  with  all  matter,  but  with  a  limited 
amount  of  matter,  as  is  magnetism  —  a  peculiar 
form  of  force  or  energy,  dependent  for  its  mani- 
festations upon  well-defined  conditions  and  reaching 
its  highest  manifestations  in  the  mind  or  conscious- 
ness of  man.  Spirit,  as  we  name  it,  is  only  a  word 
which  stands  for  no  verifiable  reality  —  something 
separable  from  matter  and  independent  of  it.  What 
victims  we  are  of  words!  When  we  get  a  name  for  a 
thing  we  are  persuaded  the  thing  exists.  The  vital 
248 


HORIZON  LINES 

process  is  inseparable  from  the  physical  processes; 
it  supplements  or  controls  them,  but  is  more  than 
they  are.  Life  is  not  a  spirit,  but  a  form  of  energy 
potential  in  matter,  and  developed  and  active  when 
the  conditions  are  right.  A  living  body  is  moved  by 
a  new  force  just  as  truly  as  a  piece  of  magnetized 
steel  is  moved  by  a  new  force,  or  as  truly  as  a 
new  force  streams  through  the  telegraph-wires  — 
a  transformation  of  other  forces,  and  behaving  in  a 
new  way,  and  producing  new  results.  There  is  noth- 
ing new  under  the  sun;  all  are  made  of  one  stuff;  but 
there  are  endless  transformations  and  permutations 
of  this  one  stuff,  and  one  of  them  is  the  phenomenon 
of  life,  or  vitality. 

Electricity  is  not  matter,  but  it  is  the  most  un- 
mistakable and  ubiquitous  form  of  energy  known 
to  us.  The  human  mind  is  a  phenomenon  of  mat- 
ter; how  related  to  the  electro-magnetic  world  we 
know  not,  but  undoubtedly  in  some  way  bound  up 
with  it. 

To  discuss  the  soul  or  attempt  to  interpret  it  in 
terms  of  these  mundane  forces  will,  of  course,  offend 
the  so-called  spiritualists.  So  long  have  we  been 
taught  to  look  upon  the  soul  as  belonging  to  an- 
other world,  another  order  of  things  from  that  of  the 
body.  Whitman  says  that  soul  and  body  are  one, 
and  leaves  his  puzzled  reader  to  solve  the  riddle  as 
best  he  can.  Heaven  and  earth  are  one  in  the  same 
sense  —  there  is  nothing  alien  or  irreconcilable  be- 
249 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

tween  them.  The  flower  and  its  stalk,  the  perfume 
and  the  root,  are  one  in  the  same  sense.  The  mind 
resides  in  the  gray  matter  of  the  brain,  and  depends 
upon  the  food  we  eat  as  truly  as  does  the  body. 

When  we  discuss  these  questions  in  terms  of  our 
religious  training  we  reach  far  difiFerent  conclusions, 
or,  rather,  we  start  with  far  different  conclusions; 
but  how  can  we  relate  these  conclusions  to  the  con- 
crete facts  as  we  know  them? 

There  is  enough  that  is  verifiable  in  clairvoyance 
and  mind-reading  and  mental  healing  to  convince 
us  that  we  are  immersed  in  a  world  of  subtle  forces 
that  ordinarily  we  wot  not  of;  that  in  some  way  a 
process  of  give  and  take  between  us  and  these  things 
is  constantly  going  on,  and  that  our  relation  to 
them  is  at  least  one  form  or  suggestion  of  our  im- 
mortality. We  are  a  part  of  the  wave  of  energy  that 
sweeps  through  the  cosmos,  as  truly  as  the  drops 
of  the  sea  hold  and  convey  the  tidal  impulse.  We 
know,  or  think  we  know,  the  sources  of  this  tidal 
impulse,  but  the  attraction  between  earth  and  moon 
and  sun  is  reciprocal  —  a  give-and-take  process 
—  and  is  only  a  phase  of  the  sum  total  (if  the  In- 
finite can  be  said  to  have  a  sum  total)  of  the  energy 
of  the  cosmos. 

The  magnet  and  magnetism  are  one.  If  you  melt 

or  pulverize  the  magnet,  you  dissipate,  but  do  not 

destroy  the  magnetism.  The  clouds  come  and  go; 

now  we  see  them,  and  then  there  is  only  blue  sky 

250 


HORIZON  LINES 

where  they  were.  Change,  but  not  destruction. 
When  the  thunder-cloud  disperses,  where  are  its 
terrible  bolts?  Withdrawn,  probably,  or  redistrib- 
uted into  the  inmost  recesses  of  matter  or  of  the 
ether.  The  energy  of  the  human  brain  and  body 
cannot  be  destroyed  by  death,  only  changed.  If 
consciousness  is  a  force,  then  it,  too,  must  persist.  It 
seems,  in  some  way,  the  equivalent  of  the  force  of 
the  body,  at  least  one  of  its  phenomena.  But  is  it 
anything  more  than  the  analogue  of  the  light  which 
the  electric  spark  emits,  and  which  is  light  only  to 
the  eye?  Consciousness  is  such  only  to  itself;  it  can- 
not be  seen  or  felt  or  known  by  other  conscious- 
nesses. What  we  know  about  the  consciousnesses  of 
others,  we  know  through  our  own. 

In  the  presence  of  the  death  of  our  friends  no 
doubt  this  is  a  cheerless  and  depressing  kind  of 
philosophy,  but  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  if  we  are 
sincere,  we  do  not  seek  to  administer  to,  or  to  warm 
and  cheer  our  human  affections.  Our  seriousness 
will  be  measured  by  the  extent  to  which  we  put  all 
these  things  behind  us.  Heroic  self-denial  finds  a 
field  here  as  well  as  in  the  struggles  of  life.  We  da 
not  want  to  cheer  ourselves  with  illusions,  no  matter 
how  welcome  they  are.  "All 's  right  with  the  world." 
The  laws  of  life  and  death  are  as  they  should  be.  The 
laws  of  matter  and  force  are  as  they  should  be; 
and  if  death  ends  my  consciousness,  still  is  death 
good.  I  have  had  life  on  those  terms,  and  some- 
251 


'  ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

where,  somehow,  the  course  of  nature  is  justified-  I 
shall  not  be  imprisoned  in  that  grave  where  you  are 
to  bury  my  body.  I  shall  be  diffused  in  great  Na- 
ture, in  the  soil,  in  the  air,  in  the  sunshine,  in  the 
hearts  of  those  who  love  me,  in  all  the  living  and 
flowing  currents  of  the  world,  though  I  may  never 
again  in  my  entirety  be  embodied  in  a  single  human 
being.  My  elements  and  my  forces  go  back  into  the 
original  sources  out  of  which  they  came,  and  these 
sources  are  perennial  in  this  vast,  wonderful,  divine 
cosmos. 


XIV 

SOUNDINGS 

I.   THE  GREAT  MYSTERY 

NO  man  in  his  senses  can  fail  to  grant  the  reality 
of  the  Great  Mystery,  the  inscrutable  and  un- 
speakable Something  which  lies  back  of  us  and 
works  in  and  through  us,  the  vast  Cosmic  Energy  of 
which  we  and  all  forms  of  life  are  manifestations, 
and  in  which  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being, 
call  it  physical  energy  or  psychic  power,  or  what 
you  will. 

We  are  not  here  by  our  wills;  we  do  not  have  our 
eyes  and  ears,  and  the  other  wonderful  mechanisms 
of  our  bodies,  and  all  our  varied  instincts  and  ca- 
pacities and  aspirations  of  our  own  will  and  in- 
vention. We  have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the 
functioning  of  our  various  bodily  organs,  scarcely 
more  than  we  have  to  do  with  the  color  of  our  eyes, 
our  innate  dispositions,  and  our  mental  aptitudes. 
In  something  not  of  us,  at  least  not  subject  to  our 
wills  and  wishes,  is  to  be  sought  the  explanation  of 
our  appearance,  and  that  of  all  other  forms  of  life, 
in  this  world.  In  other  words,  we  are  an  integral  part 
of  a  system  of  things  which  transcends  our  powers 
and  baffles  our  understanding.  After  we  have  granted 
all  this,  can  we  still  feel  the  solid  ground  beneath 
253 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

our  feet  in  accepting  the  explanation  and  interpre- 
tation which  any  of  the  formal  religious  systems, 
old  or  new,  place  upon  it?  I  think  not. 

In  the  presence  of  the  midnight  skies,  of  the  crea- 
tive and  destructive  cosmic  processes  constantly 
going  on  in  the  awful  depths  of  the  sidereal  space, 
of  suns  and  systems  coming  in  and  going  out  like 
blooming  and  fading  flowers,  in  the  presence  of  the 
geological  and  biological  histories  of  the  globe,  or  of 
the  histories  of  the  different  nations  and  races  of  the 
globe,  does  not  most  of  our  Christian  mythology 
seem  utterly  childish? 

How  strange  that  we  should  crave  a  creed  or  a  be- 
lief that  goes  outside  of  our  experimental  knowledge; 
that  is  independent  of  it,  not  subject  to  its  tests  and 
limitations;  something  afar  off  and  irrational  and 
inexplicable,  and  beyond  the  reach  of  time  and 
change!  Who  is  the  philosopher  who  said  that  we 
are  guided  by  our  common  sense  in  everything  but 
our  religious  beliefs? 

We  can  taste  and  see  and  touch  and  smell  and  eat 
and  drink  and  measure  and  accumulate  and  organ- 
ize and  assimilate  scientific  knowledge;  it  gives  us  a 
place  whereon  to  stand  our  Archimedean  lever  with 
which  we  can  move  the  world  and  the  whole  sidereal 
system  of  worlds.  But  with  our  so-called  theological 
knowledge,  and  with  much  of  our  metaphysical 
knowledge,  it  is  like  trying  to  move  with  a  lever  the 
mountain  upon  which  one  stands. 
254 


SOUNDINGS 

Furthermore,  grant  that  the  rehgious  sense  of 
mankind  is  real,  one  of  the  most  real  things  in  life, — 
so  real  and  valuable  that  the  life,  the  literature,  and 
the  art  which  have  it  not  seem  shallow  and  ephem- 
eral, —  a  living  sense  of  the  Infinite  Mystery  in 
which  we  are  embosomed  and  our  constant  rela- 
tion to  it,  —  grant  this,  I  say,  and  yet  our  creeds 
and  systems  of  salvation  do  not  minister  to  it. 
They  are  too  legal;  they  know  and  explain  too 
much.  With  them  the  administration  of  the  uni- 
verse is  as  simple  and  judicial  as  a  police  court, 
save  that  in  human  courts  of  justice  there  is  no 
deputed  sin  or  atonement.  This  is  a  gratuitous, 
manufactured  mystery  of  the  theologians,  as  are 
the  Trinity  and  the  saving  grace  of  rites  and 
ceremonies. 

Science  has  real  mysteries.  Catalysis  is  one.  How 
or  why  the  presence  of  one  body  should  cause  two 
other  bodies  to  unite  chemically  without  parting 
with  an  atom  of  their  own  substance  —  as  in  several 
cases  in  industrial  chemistry  —  is  certainly  a  mys- 
tery. On  the  strength  of  such  and  similar  facts  in 
chemistry,  shall  we  image  or  invent  a  whole  category 
of  mysteries  which  are  beyond  the  reach  of  verifica- 
tion.? 

What  mystery  hovers  about  all  chemical  reac- 
tions !  What  a  miracle  that  two  invisible  gases,  such 
as  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  should,  when  chemically 
united,  produce  a  body  so  utterly  unlike  either  as  is 
255 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

water!  The  turning  of  water  into  wine  is  as  nothing 
in  comparison,  but  even  that  feat  we  want  to  see 
done  if  we  are  to  believe  it. 

What  a  mystery  shrouds  the  whole  subject  of 
electricity  and  electro-magnetism!  A  sort  of  disem- 
bodied force,  working  its  will  upon  matter  and  yet 
subject  to  none  of  the  laws  of  matter.  Spirit?  —  but 
a  spirit  we  can  evoke  at  will,  and  make  to  do  our 
bidding,  to  run  our  errands,  a  spirit  more  friendly 
than  unfriendly.  How  prone  the  common  mind  is  to 
think  that  because  a  thing  is  mysterious  it  must  be 
true! 

As  I  have  already  emphasized,  as  man  is  a  part  of 
Nature,  so  are  all  his  creeds  and  myths,  his  religions 
and  his  philosophies,  a  part  of  Nature.  What  valid- 
ity does  that  give  them?  What  support  is  lent  to  our 
creed  by  the  fact  that  it  has  been  slowly  evolved  out 
of  the  religious  experiences  of  the  centuries?  Our 
sense  of  truth  is  also  an  evolution,  and  varies  from 
age  to  age.  That  a  thing  is  a  part  of  Nature  does  not 
settle  its  value.  Shadows  are  a  part  of  Nature;  puflf- 
balls,  fungi,  marsh-gas,  disease-germs,  and  a  thou- 
sand other  undesirable  things  are  a  part  of  Nature. 

Although  the  various  religious  systems  of  man- 
kind must  have  their  natural  history,  I  regard  them 
only  as  so  many  diverse  attempts  to  clothe  the 
spirit  against  the  cosmic  chill  of  the  vast,  unhoused, 
unsanctified,  immeasurable  out-of-doors  of  the  uni- 
verse. This  they  do  in  varying  degrees,  and  will  con- 
256 


SOUNDINGS 

tinue  to  do,  some  appealing  to  one  type  of  mind,  or 
—  shall  we  say?  —  one  stage  of  development,  some 
to  another.  The  philosopher  looks  on  and  smiles,  or 
pities,  and  is  content. 

II.   THE  NATURAL  ORDER 

Even  great  thinkers  like  Mr.  Balfour  recoil  from 
naturalism  and  cheerfully  embrace  supernaturalism. 
Mr.  Balfour  finds  the  key  to  the  fundamental  prob- 
lems of  life  in  the  miracle  of  the  Incarnation.  He  in- 
jects into  the  natural  order  a  theological  concept, 
and  the  riddle  of  man's  life  is  solved.  To  the  natu- 
ralist such  a  conclusion  is  as  impossible  as  to  hope  to 
quench  his  thirst  with  the  symbols,  H2O. 

We  may  say  every  man  born  of  woman  is  an  in- 
carnation of  the  Infinite  spirit,  and  the  hyperbole 
may  stand,  but  to  affirm  that  one  particular  man  in 
the  historic  period  was  an  incarnation  in  an  en- 
tirely other  and  more  significant  sense,  is  to  read 
magic  into  matters  of  common  sense.  It  is  an  imag- 
inary solution.  It  is  an  appeal  from  the  natural  to 
the  non-natural.  It  is  oflfering  an  artificial  solution 
to  a  natural  problem.  One  might  as  well  attribute  a 
failure  of  the  crops  to  one  of  the  political  parties,  or 
an  epidemic  of  disease  to  an  historical  document. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  is  as  far  outside  the 
realm  of  natural  law  as  is  magic,  and  to  see  in  this 
the  master  key  to  creation  is  like  ascribing  all  the 
sin  and  misery  of  the  world  to  Adam's  transgression 
257 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  The  childish  plan  of  salva- 
tion of  our  fathers  is  as  good  as  any  other  so  long  as 
it  holds  men  up  to  higher  standards  of  life  and  of 
thought;  but  the  day  is  fast  passing  when  it  can  do 
this;  natural  standards  must  in  the  end  as  surely 
prevail  in  religion  as  in  our  daily  lives. 

The  nature  that  we  see  about  us  is  enough  for  all 
forms  of  life  except  man;  why  should  he  flatter  him- 
self that  his  appearance  and  life  demand  something 
extra,  some  miracle,  something  mysterious  and  in- 
comprehensible? Why  not  invest  the  gods  we  have 
and  know  with  the  extra  power  demanded,  rather 
than  appeal  to  gods  we  know  not?  How  the  fire 
warms  us,  how  our  food  nourishes  us,  how  we  sprang 
from  a  microscopic  germ  and  grew  to  be  the  men  we 
are,  are  miracles  enough.  Every  living  thing  is  a 
miracle  as  wonderful  as  the  Immaculate  Conception 
or  the  Incarnation,  but  of  a  different  order.  If  I 
knew  how  the  meat  and  bread  which  the  poet  eats  is 
turned  into  poetry,  or  how  the  pond-lily  weaves  its 
satin  and  gold  out  of  the  muck  and  slime  of  the 
creek-bottom,  I  should  possess  a  secret  that  would 
make  me  cease  to  wonder  at  the  so-called  "mira- 
cles." In  the  face  of  the  marvels  we  hourly  see  about 
us  in  living  Nature,  why  should  we  look  afar  off  and 
invent  marvels  of  a  new  order?  Why  should  we  in> 
vent  impossible  problems,  and  then  invent  impossi- 
ble explanations  of  them? 

The  nature  gods  we  know;  we  live  in  daily  and 
£58 


SOUNDINGS 

hourly  converse  with  them;  we  see  and  know  that 
we  are  dependent  upon  them  every  moment  of  our 
lives.  These  gods  —  air,  water,  fire,  earth  —  and 
the  greater  gods  whose  eyes  blink  to  us  in  the  mid- 
night skies,  why  not  credit  them  with  the  gifts 
that  we  ascribe  to  the  imaginary  gods  of  the  super- 
natural? 

The  more  we  search  into  the  ways  of  Nature,  the 
more  wonderful  and  potent  we  find  them  to  be.  It 
may  be  that  if  we  could  penetrate  to  the  true  in- 
wardness of  matter,  we  should  find  the  key  to  the 
mystery  of  the  soul  and  the  master  key  to  all  our 
problems.  But  we  feel  that  we  must  look  afar  off,  we 
must  have  recourse  to  the  strange  and  the  miracu- 
lous. How  the  impossible  does  attract  us !  Even  the 
fantastic  may  be  made  the  basis  of  a  religious  cult. 
In  Florida,  in  a  remote,  secluded  place  we  found  a 
religious  sect,  embracing  men  and  women  of  culture 
and  refinement,  who  upheld  the  social  and  civic 
virtues  and  cultivated  the  industrial  arts,  yet  who 
deemed  it  essential  for  their  soul's  salvation  to  dis- 
believe all  our  popular  astronomy,  and  hold  to  the 
idea  that,  instead  of  living  on  the  outside  of  a  globe, 
we  live  inside  of  a  hollow  sphere,  and  that  the  sun, 
moon,  and  stars  are  appendages  of  this  sphere,  and 
not  at  all  what  we  ordinarily  take  them  to  be.  The 
expounders  of  this  faith  are  not  at  all  disturbed  by 
such  facts  as  a  ship  at  sea  dropping  below  the  hori- 
zon, or  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  showing  the  shadow 
259 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

of  a  round  body  falling  upon  it.  Such  appearances 
only  confirm  their  theory.  These  Florida  fanatics 
defy  common  sense  and  the  exact  demonstrations 
of  science.  Our  supernaturalists  superinduce  an- 
other order  above  and  around  the  order  we  call 
"natural,"  and  in  a  theological  concept,  the  In- 
carnation, link  the  two  together.  That  they  are 
linked  at  any  other  point  is  not  claimed.  In  the  age 
of  miracles  they  were  linked  at  many  points  and  on 
many  occasions.  Any  saint  could  link  them  together 
at  will,  and  reverse  or  hold  up  the  processes  of  the 
natural  order  and  substitute  those  of  the  super- 
natural. 

Such  events  as  miracles  come  very  easy  to  the 
mind  imbued  with  the  old  theological  concepts. 
Why  should  not  this  omnipotent  being  who  made 
and  rules  the  world  and  all  that  it  holds,  and  who 
has  a  scheme  of  his  own  to  carry  out  with  regard  to 
man,  step  in  at  any  time  and  annul  natural  law  or 
Imk  it  up  with  the  supernatural.'*  Belief  in  the  the- 
ory of  such  a  being  cuts  many  knots,  while  it  ties 
others  that  defy  all  our  wits. 

Life  is  so  great  a  mystery  that  we  need  not  invent 
others.  We  have  the  proof  of  life  always,  what  proof 
have  we  of  the  Incarnation?  We  know  what  de- 
stroys life,  what  favors  it,  what  conserves  it,  but  we 
do  not  know  its  origin.  We  know  something  about 
the  stars,  and  we  know  the  constellations  are  only 
imaginary  groupings.  The  historical  events  upon 
260 


SOUNDINGS 

which  our  creeds  are  founded  are  of  the  same  char- 
acter. The  Trinity  is  a  constellation.  The  miracu- 
lous birth  of  Christ  is  a  constellation.  The  fixed  stars 
of  man's  moral  nature  and  religious  aspirations  are 
alone  real.  All  the  mythologies  built  upon  them  are 
as  fanciful  as  Orion  and  the  Big  Dipper.  All  the 
various  religions  of  the  world,  with  all  their  super- 
natural features,  are  a  part  of  the  natural  history  of 
man's  religious  instincts.  Man's  craving  for  the  su- 
pernatural is  as  natural  as  our  discounting  of  the 
present  moment,  and  no  more  significant.  The 
natural  becomes  trite  and  commonplace  to  us  and 
we  take  refuge  in  an  imaginary  world  above  and  be- 
yond it.  The  understanding  becomes  sated,  and  we 
long  for  something  we  cannot  understand. 

III.   LOGIC  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS 

Of  late  years  I  am  often  moved  to  say  to  myself: 
"Why  kick  the  old  theology  after  it  is  dead? "  —  as 
I  have  often  been  tempted  to  do.  It  is  almost  like 
spurning  the  bodies  of  one's  father  and  mother.  The 
old  creeds  may  be  outworn,  but  they  have  fathered 
and  mothered  us  all.  They  have  served  and  saved 
untold  generations  of  men.  Christianity,  mythical 
and  irrational  as  much  of  it  is,  has  yet  been  the  sal- 
vation of  the  world  for  nineteen  centuries.  Of  course 
it  has  been  a  source  of  evil  as  well  as  of  good,  as  all 
religions  are,  but  the  good  has  greatly  predomi- 
nated. In  fact,  it  is  the  bed-rock  upon  which  our 
261 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

civilization  is  founded.  It  has  saved  men  in  this 
world  by  inspiring  them  with  the  desire  to  be  worthy 
of  a  better  and  future  world. 

We  are  saved,  I  often  say,  not  so  much  by  the 
truth  of  what  we  believe,  as  by  the  truth  of  our  be- 
lief, by  its  genuineness,  its  power  over  our  imagina- 
tions, its  hold  upon  our  character,  its  fostering  of  an 
incentive  to  right  conduct  and  noble  deeds.  Whether 
it  be  Catholicism  or  Calvinism  or  Methodism  or 
Quakerism  or  Christian  Science  or  the  Japanese  an- 
cestor worship  or  Buddhism,  if  it  holds  us  to  higher 
ideals  and  gives  sobriety  and  sincerity  to  our  lives, 
that  is  its  true  function. 

In  fact,  any  religion  is  good  which  supplies  a  man 
or  a  people  with  a  workable  theory  of  the  universe. 
In  practical  matters,  in  dealing  with  real  facts  and 
forces,  man  is  compelled  to  be  logical  or  he  comes 
to  grief  —  he  must  keep  fire  and  powder  apart. 
But  in  his  religion  and  speculations  he  is  bound  by 
no  such  necessity;  he  is  free  to  indulge  the  wildest 
dreams. 

Man  does  not  expect  fire  or  flood  or  frost  or  wind 
or  rain  to  favor  him.  He  does  not  put  fluids  in  leaky 
vessels,  nor  a  leaky  roof  over  his  head,  nor  plant  his 
house  on  a  foundation  of  sand.  His  carpenter's  level 
does  not  lie,  nor  his  plumb-line  make  a  mistake.  But 
in  his  religion  he  may  be  as  capricious  and  fantastic 
as  he  pleases;  he  has  a  free  hand;  he  may  even  flog 
his  gods  if  they  displease  him,  and  it  is  all  the  same. 
262 


SOUNDINGS 

His  creed  is  a  passport  to  an  entirely  different  world. 

The  religious  sect  which  I  visited  in  Florida, 
which  held  that  we  live  upon  the  inside  of  a  hollow 
sphere,  treated  our  astronomy  with  scorn,  yet 
seemed  to  live  sober,  sane  lives,  and  to  do  honest 
work.  But  if  they  carried  out  the  theory  of  the  hol- 
low sphere  in  practice,  in  their  navigation,  in  their 
clocks  and  sun-dials,  or  in  anything  else,  how 
quickly  they  would  come  to  grief! 

Christianity  is  a  workable  hypothesis;  it  solves 
the  problem  of  life  to  vast  numbers  of  persons;  but 
how  irrational  and  puerile  its  philosophy,  founded 
upon  the  myth  of  the  fall  of  Adam  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden !  Destroy  this  myth  and  you  have  cut  off  the 
tap-root  of  Christianity.  But  do  we  not  know,  in  the 
light  of  evolution,  that  man's  course  has  been  up- 
ward and  not  downward,  that  his  "fall"  was,  in 
fact,  development  into  a  higher  state  of  being? 

Thinking  men  must  find  some  sort  of  a  solution 
of  the  problems  of  the  universe,  and  feeling  men  and 
women  must  have  some  tangible,  concrete  thing 
that  in  a  measure  satisfies  their  emotional  natures. 
The  human  heart  cannot  five  on  cold  philosophical 
abstractions.  The  ceremonies  and  observances  and 
rituals  of  the  Church  give  one  something  he  can 
see  and  feel.  For  my  own  part  I  do  not  need  this 
sort  of  thing.  Every  day  is  a  Sabbath  day  to  me. 
All  pure  water  is  holy  water,  and  this  earth  is  a 
celestial  abode.  It  has  not  entered  into  the  mind  of 
263 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

any  man  to  see  and  feel  the  wonders  and  the  mys- 
teries and  the  heavenly  character  of  this  world. 

All  religions  look  away  from  the  earth  to  some 
fairer  and  better  abode,  quite  oblivious  of  the  fact 
that  heaven,  wherever  we  find  it,  will  be  of  our  own 
making.  If  we  do  not  find  it  here,  we  shall  not  find 
it  anywhere.  But  the  great  mass  of  struggling,  toil- 
ing, human  kind  must  be  comforted  and  encouraged 
by  the  prospect  of  emancipation  from  the  grossness 
and  suffering  of  this  world.  Goethe  acutely  said  to 
let  those  who  could  not  have  literature  or  art  or 
science,  have  rehgion. 

Think  of  the  many  sturdy,  God-fearing,  church- 
going,  simple  folk  one  has  known  in  his  youth  — 
how  impossible  their  creeds,  but  how  worthy  their 
lives !  It  requires  the  heroic  fiber  to  accept  the  creed 
of  Calvinism;  it  is  a  proposition  that  tries  a  man's 
mettle.  The  current  generation  is  too  frivolous  and 
empty  to  be  impressed  by  it;  not  one  in  a  thousand 
is  man  enough  to  accept  it.  The  movies  suit  them 
better.  But  what  granite  stuff  went  to  the  making  of 
our  Pilgrim  fathers ! 

Cease  all  Christian  effort,  all  organized  Christian 
charities,  all  Christian  enterprises  in  the  fields  of 
education,  social  betterment,  sanitation,  ameliora- 
tion of  the  masses,  and  our  civilization  would  suffer. 
Then  why  rail  at  the  old  creeds,  I  say  again.  They 
prepared  the  way  for  science,  and  for  the  religion  of 
nature.  Carlyle  said  to  Emerson  on  that  memorable 
264 


SOUNDINGS 

day  in  1833  when  the  two  sat  down  in  their  walk 
over  the  Scottish  hills,  "Christ  died  on  the  tree: 
that  built  Dunscore  kirk  yonder:  that  brought  you 
and  me  together."  The  old  creeds  nursed  heroic. 
God-fearing  and  God-loving  men.  True,  they  some<- 
times  disguised  the  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing  also,  but 
that  is  the  fault  of  human  nature. 

Let  us  be  as  faithful  to  our  day  and  generation  as 
our  fathers  were  to  theirs.  Wendell  Phillips  said 
that  to  be  as  good  as  our  fathers  were,  we  must  be 
a  good  deal  better.  Shall  we  rail  at  our  Puritan  an- 
cestors for  the  hardness  of  their  creeds?  Although 
the  Pauline  plan  of  salvation  seems  childish  to  us, 
it  seemed  the  foundation  of  the  universe  for  our 
fathers.  To  clinch  a  nail  you  need  something  hard, 
and  the  Calvinistic  creed  has  clinched  the  resolution 
of  many  a  man. 

IV.  A  CHIP  FROM  THE  OLD  BLOCK 

It  makes  me  more  charitable  toward  my  neighbor's 
creed,  childish  though  I  think  it  is,  to  remember 
that  it  came  out  of  his  life,  or  out  of  the  life  around 
him,  as  truly  as  did  my  own.  We  cannot  separate 
man,  and  all  that  revolves  around  him,  from  the 
totality  of  things.  There  is  no  depravity  or  cruelty 
or  perversion  in  the  world  that  is  not  fed  by  the  life 
of  the  world.  The  war  that  has  depopulated  and 
devastated  Europe  is  just  as  legitimate  a  part  of 
total  Nature  as  were  all  the  fruits  of  the  ages  of 
265 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

peace  and  prosperity.  Everything  in  the  woods  is  a 
part  of  the  woods,  and  bears  their  stamp;  every- 
thing in  the  sea  is  a  part  of  the  sea.  The  tumor,  the 
ulcer,  and  the  disease,  are  a  part  of  our  bodies,  and 
are  fed  by  its  vitality.  In  our  practical  lives  we  are 
compelled  to  separate  a  part  from  the  whole,  to  ac- 
cept this  and  reject  that,  but  when  we  essay  to  com- 
prehend the  whole  we  must  see  that  all  cire  but 
parts,  and  that  our  phi'osophy  is  lame  if  it  does 
not  see  that  the  so-called  good  and  the  so-called 
bad  are  fruit  of  the  same  tree. 

We  are  prone  to  separate  ourselves  from  the  rest 
of  Nature  and  to  claim  for  ourselves  much  that  we 
deny  to  all  other  animals,  such  as  the  existence  of 
the  soul,  and  its  immortality.  But  we  are  all  of  one 
stuff.  Out  of  the  earth  has  come  a  creature  that  has 
changed  the  surface  of  the  earth  over  vast  areas; 
that  has  changed  the  course  of  rivers,  and  the  face 
of  continents;  that  has  harnessed  the  forces  of  the 
earth  and  turned  them  against  themselves.  How 
the  earth  elements  came  to  organize  themselves  into 
this  creature  —  here  we  can  take  no  step! 

V.    A  PERSONAL  GOD 

I  ONCE  heard  an  Irish  laborer  refer  solemnly,  with 
an  upward  lift  of  the  head,  to  the  man  up  above.  He 
did  not  refer  to  the  man  down  below,  but  no  doubt 
might  have  done  so  had  occasion  required.  If  we 
have  oncj  we  must  have  the  other  to  keep  the  bal- 
266 


SOUNDINGS 

ance.  The  man  up  above  must  keep  his  skirts  clean, 
and  to  admit  of  this  the  man  down  below  must  be 
the  scapegoat. 

How  long  has  the  belief  in  the  reality  of  these  two 
manlike  beings,  the  one  all  good,  the  other  all  evil, 
ruled  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men !  The  old  He- 
brew prophets  were  drunk  with  the  idea  of  a  man- 
like Jehovah.  A  terrible  man  they  made  of  him  —  a 
cruel,  despotic  ruler,  wreaking  his  vengeance  on  his 
enemies,  exacting  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for 
a  tooth,  a  lover  of  righteousness,  but  a  vengeful, 
jealous,  angry  God.  And  the  man  down  below  was 
his  fit  counterpart,  blocking  and  marring  or  defeat- 
ing the  plans  of  the  man  up  above.  These  concep- 
tions go  with  the  infancy  of  the  human  reason. 

So  many  phases  of  our  religious  belief  are  the  re- 
sult of  imperfect  knowledge  and  false  conceptions 
of  the  world  in  which  we  live!  They  come  down  to 
us  from  an  earlier  time,  when  the  earth  was  regarded 
as  the  center  of  the  universe,  all  other  bodies  re- 
volving around  it.  Man  lifted  his  eyes  and  his  hands 
to  heaven  in  an  appeal  to  the  heavenly  powers. 

It  seems  as  if  the  religious  sense  of  the  mass  of 
mankind  was,  by  the  operation  of  some  psychologi- 
cal law,  forced  to  externize  and  visualize,  yes,  and 
humanize,  the  object  upon  which  its  interest  cen- 
ters. Orthodox  religion,  while  proclaiming  that  God 
is  a  spirit,  that  He  is  everywhere,  that  He  fills  all 
nature,  that  not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  with- 
267 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

out  his  notice,  and  that  heaven  is  not  a  place,  but  a 
state  of  mind,  yet  makes  its  God  a  personal  being, 
endowed  with  our  human  attributes,  with  hkes  and 
dislikes,  sorely  tried  by  our  sins  and  weaknesses; 
nearer  us  sometimes  than  at  others,  present  every- 
where, yet  abiding  in  one  particular  place  called 
heaven  —  these  and  many  other  childish  and  con- 
tradictory things. 

That  keen,  clear-minded  man.  Cardinal  Newman, 
regarded  God  under  the  image  of  a  maker,  detached 
absolutely  like  any  human  workman  from  the  work 
of  his  hand.  He  is  the  Eternal  King,  absolutely 
distinct  from  the  world  as  being  its  center, — 
*'  Upholder,  Governor,  and  Sovereign  Lord."  "  He 
created  all  things  out  of  nothing,  and  preserves 
them  every  moment,  and  could  destroy  them  as 
He  made  them."  "He  is  separated  from  them  by 
an  abyss,  and  is  incommunicable  in  all  his  attri- 
butes." This  being  is  always  described  and  in- 
terpreted in  terms  of  man,  or  of  our  own  finite 
human  nature,  reflecting  in  his  outlines  human 
history,  human  political  and  social  institutions, 
and  the  aims  and  objects  of  concrete  human 
beings.  He  does  not  hesitate  to  relate  this  God 
to  "every  movement  which  has  convulsed  and 
refashioned  the  surface  of  the  earth,"  and  hence 
to  make  him  responsible  for  the  death  and  de- 
struction and  misery  which  have  attended  earth- 
quakes and  have  set  back  the  tide  of  human  prog- 
268 


SOUNDINGS 

ress.  Of  course  every  noxious  insect,  every  noxious 
plant  and  beast  and  death-dealing  germ  is  from 
Him  also.  "Wars  when  just"  are  from  Him  also. 
Who  or  what  are  they  from  when  they  are  not  just, 
the  great  Cardinal  does  not  say.  Can  both  sides  be 
just.''  Into  such  absurdities  does  the  conception  of  a 
manlike  God  lead  us. 

The  modern  scientific  mind,  quite  as  imaginative 
—  if  not  more  so  —  as  the  typical  theological  mind, 
never  gets  mired  in  such  contradictions  or  tangled 
up  in  such  childish  anthropomorphism.  Such  con- 
fusion arises  out  of  the  habit  of  mind  which  sees  the 
whole  creation  directed  to  man;  his  good  is  its  one 
object  and  aim,  and  when  his  good  suffers,  some- 
thing has  miscarried.  The  cruel  and  destructive 
things  in  nature  can  only  be  accounted  for  on  the 
theory  that  some  aboriginal  calamity,  like  the  fall 
of  man,  had  visited  the  world  before  God  took 
charge  of  things. 

The  naturalist  sees  this  as  the  best  possible  world, 
sees  that  Nature  is  not  an  indulgent  stepmother, 
but  a  strict  disciplinarian;  that  the  good  and  well- 
being  of  all  is  her  aim;  that  suffering  and  defeat 
are  relative;  that  God's  ways  to  man  are  not  justi- 
fied in  a  day  or  a  week,  or  in  this  place  or  that,  but 
require  ages  and  continents  to  come  to  their  full 
fruition.  The  good  and  the  evil  that  will  come  out  of 
the  terrible  World  War  will  not  all  be  apparent  this 
year,  or  next,  but  only  in  the  perspective  of  history 
269 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

—  in  the  sum  total  of  human  progress  of  the  ages. 
Such  a  view  is  a  slap  in  the  face  of  our  egotism 
which  demands  instant  returns,  and  which  makes 
the  individual  supreme. 

With  Nature,  as  I  have  so  often  said,  our  stand- 
ards of  good  and  evil  apply  to  us  alone,  and  they 
change  with  the  changing  years.  The  naturalist 
sees  that  pain  and  delay  and  defeat  are  the  price 
of  development;  that  the  world  is  imperfect,  and 
man  is  imperfect,  because  growth  and  develop- 
ment are  the  law  of  nature;  that  there  is  always 
a  higher  level,  and  always  will  be,  which  we  realize 
only  when  we  look  back.  A  perfect  world,  as  we  use 
the  term,  would  mean  the  end  of  all  development. 

VI.    THE  ETERNAL 

How  much  is  in  a  name !  When  we  call  the  power 
back  of  all  God,  it  smells  of  creeds  and  systems,  of 
superstition,  intolerance,  persecution;  but  when  we 
call  it  Nature,  it  smells  of  spring  and  summer,  of 
green  fields  and  blooming  groves,  of  birds  and  flow- 
ers and  sky  and  stars.  I  admit  that  it  smells  of  tor- 
nadoes and  earthquakes,  of  jungles  and  wildernesses, 
of  disease  and  death,  too,  but  these  things  make  it 
all  the  more  real  to  us. 

The  word  "God"  has  so  long  stood  for  the  con- 
ception of  a  being  who  sits  apart  from  Nature,  who 
shapes  and  rules  it  as  its  maker  and  governor.  It  is 
part  of  the  conception  of  a  dual  or  plural  universe, 
270 


SOUNDINGS 

God  and  Nature.  This  offends  my  sense  of  the  one- 
ness of  creation.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  no 
other  adequate  solution  of  the  total  problem  of  life 
and  Nature  than  what  is  called  "pantheism,"  which 
identifies  mind  and  matter,  finite  and  Infinite,  and 
sees  in  all  these  diverse  manifestations  one  absolute 
being.  As  Emerson  truly  says,  pantheism  does  not 
beHttle  God,  it  magnifies  him.  God  becomes  the  one 
and  only  i]Ui'mnt<^  far>t  tl^ot  fiHo  fl,o  imlyerse  and 
frmn  ^hinh  we  can  no  more  be  estranged  than  we 
can  be  estranf^ef^  from  frravitation. 

The  moment  we  seek  to  interpret  the  Eternal  in 
terms  of  our  own  psychology,  we  get  into  trouble. 
We  cannot  measure  the  Infinite  by  the  standards 
of  the  finite.  Our  economies,  our  methods,  our  aims 
are  not  those  of  Nature.  God,  in  the  sense  in  which 
I  use  the  terra,  does  not  plan  and  design  and  adapt 
means  to  ends  as  does  man.  God  is  no  more  the 
maker  than  He  is  the  thing  made.  How  natural  for 
us  to  think  that  the  air  was  made  for  us  to  breathe, 
the  water  for  us  to  drink,  the  light  for  us  to  see,  and 
the  earth  for  us  to  inhabit!  But  these  things  are 
older  than  we  are.  I  have  seen  a  pumpkin  growing 
in  the  fence  and  fitting  exactly  into  the  niche  amid 
the  rails,  but  was  not  the  fence  there  before  it  was? 

There  is  design  in  Nature,  but  not  in  the  sense 
that  there  is  design  in  human  affairs  and  contriv- 
ances. There  is  no  designer.  There  are  living  ma- 
chines, but  no  machinist.  Things  grow.  Evolution 
271 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

is  a  vital  process.  Man's  course  is  a  right  line,  Na- 
ture's is  a  circle.  Man  aims  to  cut  out  the  waste, 
the  pain,  the  failures.  How  does  Nature  trim  her 
trees  or  renew  her  forests  or  weed  her  gardens?  Only 
by  a  survival  of  the  fittest  or  the  luckiest.  Every 
branch  that  dies  and  decays  and  falls  from  the  tree 
does  so  at  the  risk  of  the  health  and  well-being  of 
the  whole  tree.  Often  the  decayed  branch  leaves  a 
hole  that  in  time  causes  the  death  of  the  tree.  See 
how  evenly  the  pine  and  spruce  and  hemlock  and 
oak  forests  get  planted  by  Nature's  haphazard 
method,  but  think  of  the  time  involved!  But  what 
is  time  to  the  Eternal?  Man  cuts  out  the  time  and 
gets  his  forest  quickly.  He  trims  his  wood  and 
avoids  the  danger  of  delays  and  decaying  wood.  He 
selects  such  plants  for  his  garden  as  he  desires,  and 
avoids  the  dangers  of  the  struggle  to  survive.  He 
takes  the  side  of  the  weak  against  the  strong,  but 
Nature  favors  only  the  strong. 

The  rain  falls  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust.  The 
weather  goes  its  way  irrespective  of  you  and  me. 
Storm,  tempest,  frost,  drought,  sunshine,  are  no 
respecters  of  persons.  The  seasons  came  and  went 
before  man  appeared,  just  as  they  do  now.  The 
Eternal  never  takes  sides  as  man  takes  sides,  but 
because  it  does  not,  should  we  lose  faith?  The 
Eternal  takes  sides  as  the  sun  takes  sides,  and  not 
otherwise.  The  light  shines  for  all.  Providence  is  a 
universal  beneficence.  The  clouds  go  their  way.  The 
272 


SOUNDINGS 

beneficence  is  seen  in  the  slow  amelioration  of  mete- 
oric conditions  through  countless  ceons,  till  the  cloud 
and  the  bow  appeared,  and  with  them  conditions 
favorable  to  life.  The  impartial  rains  are  oblivious 
to  our  human  needs,  but,  as  I  so  often  say,  they  are 
on  the  side  of  life.  They  are  on  the  side  of  develop- 
ment. They  made  the  sublime  drama  of  evolution 
possible. 

The  weather  favored  us  seons  before  we  were  born, 
because  it  favored  life.  Therefore,  when  we  say  that 
the  Eternal  is  neither  for  us  nor  against  us,  we 
mean  in  our  special  human  sense.  He  is  on  the  side 
of  the  righteous  only  when  the  righteous  live  ac- 
cording to  the  rule  of  Nature  or  rightness,  or  in 
harmony  with  the  eternal  order.  And  he  is  against 
the  unrighteous  when  they  transgress  this  order.  In 
vain  do  we  pray  for  victory  on  the  eve  of  battle, 
except  in  so  far  as  prayer  puts  courage  into  our 
hearts.  Victory  is  for  him  who  marshals  the  physical 
and  moral  forces  the  most  skillfully.  The  victory  is 
from  the  Eternal  whoever  wins,  because  it  is  the 
fruit  of  the  order  which  It  established,  or,  rather, 
which  It  is. 

As  we  cannot  get  away  from  Nature,  we  cannot 
get  away  from  the  Eternal.  He  sticketh  closer  than 
a  brother,  closer  than  the  blood  in  our  own  hearts, 
not  always  to  bless  and  to  cheer,  often  to  hinder  and 
depress.  Not  all  ease  and  joy  is  life;  it  is  as  often 
struggle,  tears,  defeat. 

273 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Not  by  placing  God  afar  off  in  the  heavens  —  a 
supersensuous,  supermundane,  supernatural  being 
—  do  we  make  the  problem  easier.  Not  till  we 
bring  Him  down  to  earth  and  incarnate  Him  (the 
old  myth  of  Christ  again),  and  identify  Him  with 
everything  without  us  and  within  —  not  till  God  be- 
comes man  —  do  we  see  a  light  under  the  feet  of 
Fate;  not  till  then  do  we  see  love  and  fatherhood 
and  brotherhood  and  sacrifice  and  humility  and 
beneficence  and  altruism  in  Nature.  When  we  see 
man  as  a  part  of  Nature,  we  see  him  as  a  part  of 
God. 

In  humanity  alone  do  we  see  the  face  of  justice, 
of  mercy,  of  charity,  of  forgiveness,  of  reverence, 
of  renunciation  —  human  virtues,  they,  too,  come 
out  of  the  heart  of  Nature.  If  this  is  a  hard  gospel, 
still  it  is  tangible,  real,  livable.  We  cannot  live  other 
than  on  familiar  terms  with  Nature.  In  her  we  see 
the  sources  of  our  power,  our  help,  our  health.  We 
know  the  conditions  of  our  well-being.  We  know 
the  price  we  have  to  pay  for  each  blessing.  Our 
reason,  our  intelligence,  we  come  by  honestly  and 
inevitably.  Their  fountainhead  is  in  Nature. 

Amid  the  agony  and  turmoil  of  war  we  need  not 
lose  faith.  We  know  that  Nature  is  still  Nature. 
If  disease  and  pestilence  and  famine  rage,  we  know 
that  there  are  weapons  with  which  to  fight  them. 
We  know  that  order  comes  out  of  chaos,  that  life 
comes  out  of  death.  We  have  neither  to  curse  our 
274 


SOUNDINGS 

gods  nor  to  praise  them,  neither  to  do  penance  nor 
to  offer  burnt  offerings,  but  only  to  take  and  use 
wisely  the  gifts  they  bestow. 

VII.    AN  IMPARTIAL  DEITY 

What  difficulties  and  contradictions  we  fall  into 
the  moment  we  identify  Nature  with  God,  and 
what  equal  or  greater  difficulties  we  fall  into  if  we  re- 
fuse to  identify  Nature  with  God !  True  it  is  that  in 
the  former  case  we  bring  God  very  near  and  make 
him  very  real;  we  see  and  feel  our  direct  and  con- 
tinuous dependence  upon  Him  —  indeed,  that  we 
are  a  part  of  Him;  that  every  breath  we  draw,  and 
every  thought  we  think,  and  every  pound  of  en- 
ergy we  put  forth  is  in  and  through  Him;  and  that 
we  can  no  more  wander  or  escape  from  Him  than 
we  can  escape  gravity  or  chemical  affinity.  There 
are  no  skeptics  or  atheists  in  regard  to  Nature.  It 
alone  exists  and  goes  on  forever.  But  here  comes  the 
pinch !  God  as  Nature  is  not  only  the  author  of  the 
good,  He  is  the  author  of  what  we  call  evil  also; 
He  is  as  many-sided  as  Nature  is.  The  savage  and 
merciless  aspects  of  Nature  are  of  Him  also;  He 
is  in  the  jungles  of  Africa,  as  well  as  in  the  walks 
of  culture  and  refinement;  in  the  destroying 
tornado  as  well  as  in  the  gentle  summer  breeze; 
in  the  overwhelming  floods  as  well  as  in  the 
morning  dews.  He  is  as  much  the  author  of  dis- 
ease as  He  is  of  health;  of  war,  pestilence,  famine, 
275 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

as  He  is  of  peace,  plenty,  and  the  progress  of  the 
world.  He  is  in  the  trenches  and  the  slaughter  of 
the  contending  armies  as  truly  as  in  the  most 
peaceful  and  pious  family  or  social  circle  in  the 
world.  The  asphyxiating  gases  are  his,  and  the 
bursting  bombs,  no  less  than  the  breaking  hearts 
and  the  prayerful  souls  at  home.  The  comets  that 
come  like  apparitions  in  the  heavens,  and  then  are 
gone,  and  the  stars  that  shine  steadfastly,  are  all  a 
part  of  the  same  scheme.  The  dragons  and  monsters 
that  possessed  the  earth  and  the  fruits  thereof  for 
millions  of  years  in  geologic  time  were  the  work 
of  that  divinity  which  shapes  our  ends  to-day. 

We  separate  ourselves  from  Nature  and  flatter 
ourselves  that  we  belong  to  another  and  higher 
order;  that  we  alone  are  of  divine  origin,  and  not 
involved  in  the  fate  of  the  rest  of  Creation;  but  we 
are  fragments  of  the  same  granite  that  forms  the 
foundation  of  the  earth.  "I  am  stuccoed  with  birds 
and  quadrupeds  all  over,"  says  Whitman.  The 
reptile  was  our  ancestor;  we  were  cradled  in  the 
old  seas;  we  are  kin  to  the  worm  and  the  mollusk; 
we  derive  from  creeping,  swimming,  noisome 
things,  from  the  slime  and  mud  of  the  old  sea 
bottoms,  from  the  cosmic  dust  and  the  solar 
radiations.  Why  should  we  put  on  superior  airs 
when  not  one  atom  of  matter  will  turn  aside  for 
us,  not  one  law  of  physics  cease  to  operate  to  save 
us  from  destruction  .f'  The  vast  army  of  elemental 
276 


SOUNDINGS 

forces  knows  us  not.  We  may  divert  them  and  bend 
them  to  our  will,  but  they  heed  us  not;  they  de- 
stroy us  the  moment  we  lose  control. 

Nature  does  not  love  us  any  more  than  she  hates 
us;  she  goes  her  way,  indifferent. 

The  best  we  can  say  about  it  all  is  that  Nature, 
or  the  Natural  Providence,  is  too  big  for  us  to 
grasp;  that  in  these  seas  we  can  find  no  soundings. 
But  we  are  here,  the  world  is  beautiful,  life  is 
worth  hving,  love  always  pays;  Nature  serves  us 
when  we  know  how  to  use  her;  when  we  plant  and 
sow  wisely  God  will  send  the  increase.  Friendly  or 
unfriendly,  of  God  or  of  the  Devil,  the  physical 
forces  have  ministered  to  us.  More  things  have 
been  for  us  than  have  been  against  us;  more  winds 
have  blown  our  barks  into  safe  harbors  than  have 
dashed  us  upon  the  rocks.  There  are  more  re- 
freshing showers  than  devastating  tornadoes;  more 
sunshine  than  forked  lightning;  more  fertile  land 
upon  the  earth  than  parched  deserts;  a  broader 
belt  of  genial  climates  than  of  frigid  zones.  Thorns 
and  spines  and  nettles  are  the  exception  in  vege- 
tation; stings  and  venomous  fangs  are  the  excep- 
tion in  animal  life.  Hawks  can  catch  the  smaller 
birds,  yet  there  are  vastly  more  small  birds  than 
hawks.  The  weasel  can  catch  the  rabbit  and  the 
squirrel  and  the  rat,  yet  there  are  ten-fold,  fifty-fold, 
more  of  these  rodents  than  there  are  weasels.  The 
carnivorous  beasts  of  the  plains  and  of  the  jungle  do 
277 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

not  exterminate  the  herbivorous;  there  is  more  good 
than  evil  everywhere;  more  peace  than  war;  more 
kindness  than  cruelty.  The  God  of  Nature  goes  his 
way,  but  his  way  is  our  way;  we  have  arisen  out  of 
Nature;  as  it  is,  the  chances  of  life  have  been  in  our 
favor;  the  stream  makes  its  own  channel;  the  waters 
find  their  way  to  the  sea;  they  do  not  all  stagnate  on 
the  way.  Some  of  the  seed  which  the  winds  sow 
falls  upon  barren  places,  but  not  the  most  of  it. 
Some  men  are  born  criminals  or  cripples  or  mal- 
formed, but  not  the  majority.  The  creatures  preyed 
upon  always  vastly  outnumber  the  creatures  that 
prey  upon  them.  And  in  truth,  in  the  whole  realm 
of  Nature  more  things  wait  upon  man  than  war 
upon  him. 

VIII.    FINITE  AND  INFINITE 

The  unnamable,  the  unthinkable,  the  omnipotent, 
the  omnipresent,  we  cannot  discuss  or  define  in 
terms  of  our  humanity.  The  moment  we  try  to  do 
so  we  are  involved  in  contradictions,  just  as  we  are 
when  we  try  to  define  the  sphere  in  terms  of  the 
plane.  The  sphere  has  no  length,  it  has  no  breadth, 
it  has  no  thickness,  in  the  sense  that  bodies  upon 
its  surface  have.  It  has  no  weight,  and  it  has  no  be- 
ginning and  no  end,  and  we  may  say  that  its  motion 
is  eternal  rest;  yet  rest  implies  motion,  and  motion 
implies  rest. 
When  we  say  that  there  is  no  God,  we  only  mean 
278 


SOUNDINGS 

that  there  is  no  being  that  we  can  define  or  con- 
ceive of  in  terms  of  man.  Nothing  in  the  finite  can 
help  us  in  deahng  with  the  infinite.  The  Infinite,  the 
Omnipotent,  the  Omnipresent,  cannot  be  a  being 
without  sharing  the  Umitations  of  being,  or  without 
being  subject  to  the  bounds  of  time  and  space.  If 
God  is  everywhere.  He  is  nowhere;  if  He  is  all- 
powerful,  his  power  has  no  contrary,  and  hence 
ceases  to  exist.  One  after  another  the  human  and 
personal  attributes  we  ascribe  to  Him  disappear 
when  we  try  to  conceive  of  Him  in  terms  of  the 
infinite.  The  infinite  is  equivalent  to  negation.  There 
are  no  terms  in  which  we  can  define  the  ether;  it  is 
the  negative  of  all  things  that  have  length  and 
breadth  and  thickness,  or  motion  or  rest  or  sub- 
stance, or  friction  or  cohesion,  or  place  or  power.  An 
infinite  being  is  as  much  a  contradiction  of  terms  as 
a  square  or  plane  sphere  would  be.  If  God  is  a  per- 
son, with  human-like  attributes  and  emotions,  — 
though  we  call  them  divine,  —  it  is  legitimate  to  ask. 
Where  is  He?  where  was  He  before  the  solar  systems 
took  form?  where  will  He  be  after  they  have  again 
become  formless? 

Our  inevitable  anthropomorphism  prefigures  the 
Infinite  as  superman;  He  is  man  magnified  to  in- 
finity. He  is  the  supreme  king  or  ruler  of  the  uni- 
verse. We  dream  of  seeing  Him  face  to  face;  He  has 
eyes,  ears,  hands,  feet,  and  the  emotions  of  love, 
anger,  pity,  and  the  like.  Man  thus  imposes  his 
279 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

own  form  upon  the  power  that  is  and  upholds  the 
cosmos.  He  carves  it  into  his  own  image,  and  then 
seeks  to  propitiate  it  and  influence  it  as  He  Him- 
self is  propitiated  and  influenced.  Praise  is  sweet  to 
it,  honor  is  sweet,  revenge  is  sweet,  because  these 
things  are  sweet  to  man. 

When  we  call  this  force  Nature,  we  bring  it  near 
to  us  and  can  see  and  feel  our  direct  relation  to  it. 
We  are  bone  of  its  bone  and  flesh  of  its  flesh.  We 
see  its  impersonal  or  unpersonal  character.  We  get 
light  on  the  vexed  problem  of  good  and  evil  which 
is  such  an  insoluble  enigma  to  the  theologians. 

Nature  embraces  all;  she  fathers  and  mothers  all; 
has  no  partialities,  knows  no  exceptions,  no  miracles, 
no  deputied  atonements,  no  evil  apart  from  the 
good  and  no  good  apart  from  the  evil,  no  life  with- 
out death  and  no  death  without  life. 

IX.    THE  INSOLUBLE 

What  desperate  efforts  mankind  has  made  to  shape 
this  vast,  blmd,  unconscionable  power  we  call  Na- 
ture into  an  image  of  a  God  that  would  satisfy  our 
moral  and  spiritual  wants  and  aspirations!  Where 
did  men  get  their  standards  of  such  a  God.''  They 
have  evidently  been  slowly  evolved  through  the 
friction  of  man  with  man.  They  have  possessed  sur- 
vival value.  Love,  truth,  justice,  mercy,  have  con- 
tributed to  the  fuUness  of  life  and  to  length  of  days. 
One  may  adopt  Biblical  language  and  say  that 
280 


SOUNDINGS 

righteousness  endureth  forever.  The  triumph  of  the 
wicked  is  only  for  a  season;  it  may  be  a  long  season, 
it  may  embrace  whole  periods  of  human  history, 
and  entail  measureless  suffering  on  the  human  race, 
but  change  and  retribution  surely  come.  The  way 
of  man's  moral  and  material  progress  is  like  the 
stream  that  now  hurries,  now  tarries,  is  now  dis- 
rupted and  noisy  in  rapids  and  falls,  now  sluggish 
and  almost  stagnant  in  long  level  reaches,  but 
which  does  go  forward  and  reach  its  goal  at  last. 
But  is  there  not  some  predetermined  bent  toward 
righteousness,  —  not  of  the  ecclesiastical  sort,  but 
of  the  scientific  sort,  —  toward  the  relations  of 
man  with  man,  that  results  in  the  greatest  good  to 
the  greatest  number,  —  a  bent  inherent  in  the 
nature  of  things?  Would  evolution  have  taken 
the  road  toward  man  and  all  the  other  forms  of 
life  blindly,  accidentally?  Would  it  have  started 
at  all  had  there  not  been  some  initial  impulse, 
or  some  thought,  somewhere,  of  all  that  was  to 
follow? 

The  doctrine  of  design  does  not  meet  the  prob- 
lem; the  doctrine  of  chance  does  not  meet  it.  Design 
in  our  human  world  means  a  designer.  What,  then, 
does  it  mean  in  the  non-human  world?  There  can  be 
no  design  in  such  a  world,  because  the  human  mind 
is  not  present.  There  can  be  no  chance,  because  a 
chance  jumbling  and  collision  of  the  primordial 
elements  could  not  result  in  the  organized  mattel 
281 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

that  is  life,  any  more  than  a  thousand  of  brick 
dumped  upon  the  ground  can  take  the  form  of  a 
house.  The  brick  and  mortar  demand  an  architect, 
and  organized  matter  demands  an  organizing  prin- 
ciple. Whence  its  source?  There  we  are  where  no 
further  step  can  be  taken.  What  about  the  divine 
mind.?  But  that  is  jumping  the  whole  question.  If 
you  place  your  God  here,  I  shall  ask  him  some  em- 
barrassing questions,  such  as,  Where  did  you  come 
from?  Where  have  you  been  all  these  aeons?  Why 
are  you  so  wasteful  and  dilatory  in  your  methods? 
Why  have  you  made  the  world  so  full  of  misery? 
Or,  I  might  ask  the  question  a  little  boy  asked  his 
father:  "Why  did  God  make  Satan?"  The  prob- 
lem, it  seems  to  me,  is  quite  as  embarrassing  to  us 
mortals  with  a  God  as  without  one.  It  is  just  as  hard 
to  account  for  a  God  as  to  account  for  the  initial  im- 
pulse. In  both  cases  we  have  in  our  hands  a  rope 
with  only  one  end.  In  trying  to  find  the  other  end, 
we  only  get  ourselves  hopelessly  tied  up. 

X.    PAYING  THE  DEBT 

In  my  youth  I  often  heard  the  old  people  speak  of 
death  as  "paying  the  debt  of  Nature"  —  "He  has 
paid  the  debt."  Life  puts  us  in  debt  to  Nature  — 
the  earth,  the  air,  the  water  —  for  the  elements  of 
our  bodies  and  the  powers  of  our  minds,  and  the 
time  inevitably  comes  when  we  must  settle  the  ac- 
count. That  we  are  going  to  have  something  left 
282 


SOUNDINGS 

over  —  that  we  have  only  to  pay  the  debt  of  the 
body,  and  not  of  the  mind  —  is  one  of  the  dreams 
that  it  is  hard  for  most  persons  to  give  up.  Will  not 
then  the  universal  mind  that  pervades  Nature  claim 
its  own  also?  Can  you  and  I  hope  to  remain  de- 
tached from  it  forever?  Is  that  a  consummation 
devoutly  to  be  wished? 

Be  assured  that  no  particle  of  soul  or  body  can  be 
lost.  But  processes  may  cease;  the  flame  of  the  lamp 
may  go  out,  and  the  sum  total  of  force  and  matter 
remain  the  same.  When  a  blade  of  grass  dies,  a  proc- 
ess has  ended,  and  as  mysterious  a  process  as  went  on 
in  Csesar's  brain  and  body.  And  when  all  life  on  the 
earth  and  in  our  universe  ceases,  if  it  ever  does,  the 
problem  would  remain  just  as  puzzling,  if  we  can 
fancy  ourselves  still  here  to  puzzle  over  it.  We  are 
links  in  an  endless  cycle  of  change  in  which  we 
cannot  separate  the  material  from  what  we  call  the 
spiritual. 

The  water  in  our  bodies  to-day  may  have  flashed 
as  a  dewdrop  yesterday,  or  lent  itself  to  the  splendor 
of  the  sunrise  or  sunset,  or  played  a  part  in  the  bow 
in  the  clouds.  To-morrow  it  may  be  whirling  in  the 
vortex  of  a  tornado,  or  helping  to  quench  the  life  of 
a  drowning  man,  or  glistening  in  the  frost  figures  on 
the  window-pane.  The  movements  of  the  brain 
molecules  in  which  the  phenomena  of  thought  and 
consciousness  are  so  mysteriously  involved,  they, 
too,  are  links  in  the  cycle  of  change. 
283 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

.    One  of  our  younger  poets,  John  Russell  Mc- 
Carthy, has  had  the  courage  to  say: 

"  that  we  must  look  for  life 
Hereafter,  not  by  one  and  one,  —  your  soul 
Alone  among  the  souls  of  other  men, 
Drifting  and  staying,  a  thing  apart  forever  — 
But  we  must  see  when  all  at  last  is  counted 
And  the  great  sum  is  made,  how  one  by  one 
We  have  returned  to  Her,  the  Mother  of  All,  — 
The  bit  of  soul-stufif  that  She  loaned  us. 

For  we  must  live  at  last  a  part  of  Her  — 
For  we  shall  be  forever  as  one  with  Her." 

The  reverent  old  people  to  whom  I  just  referred 
paid  the  debt  long  ago,  and  the  day  of  reckoning  for 
some  of  us  cannot  be  far  off.  After  the  account  is 
closed  who  or  what  has  profited  by  the  transaction? 
We  are  prone  to  put  such  questions  to  Nature,  but 
they  are  irrelevant.  The  universe  is  not  run  for 
profit,  as  we  use  the  term.  So  far  as  we  can  see,  it  is 
run  just  to  satisfy  the  {esthetic  and  creative  feeling 
of  the  Eternal.  When  the  sidereal  systems  in  space 
run  down,  they  are  wound  up  again,  and  suns  and 
planets  are  started  anew.  The  great  game  never 
comes  to  an  end;  in  fact,  it  is  unthinkable  that  it 
should  ever  have  begun,  except  as  the  flowers  begin 
in  spring,  or  as  a  man  begins  when  he  is  born.  Ante- 
cedents !  Antecedents !  —  always.  We  cannot  apply 
our  standards  of  loss  and  gain  to  the  dealings  of 
the  Eternal  with  us.  "That  I  have  positively  ap- 
peared," says  Whitman,  "that  is  enou«rh." 
284 


SOUNDINGS 

Each  of  us  is  an  incarnation  of  the  universal 
mind,  as  is  every  beast  of  the  field  and  jungle,  and 
every  fowl  of  the  air,  and  every  insect  that  creeps 
and  flies;  and  we  can  only  look  upon  creation  as  an 
end  in  itself.  To  ask  what  the  great  spectacle  is  for, 
is  to  betray  our  tradesman  habit  of  mind.  Man  is  a 
link  in  an  endless  chain  of  being.  If  we  ask  what  he 
is  for,  the  old  answer  of  the  catechism  is  as  good  as 
any  —  "To  glorify  God  and  enjoy  Him  forever."  In 
other  words,  to  make  the  most  of  his  life  and  strive 
for  the  highest  happiness,  which  is  knowledge  and 
appreciation  of  the  universal.  Coleridge  says  we 
glorify  God  when  we  work  for  the  well-being  of 
mankind. 

How  quite  impossible  it  is  for  us  to  adjust  our 
minds  to  the  thought  of  death  —  to  the  thought  of 
the  absolute  negation  of  life !  When  we  torment  our- 
selves about  death,  about  the  coldness  and  darkness 
of  the  grave,  about  being  cut  off  from  all  the  warm 
and  happy  currents  of  Ufe  that  flow  about  us,  we  are 
unconsciously  thinking  of  ourselves  as  still  living,  or 
as  conscious  of  the  gloom  and  negation  that  await 
us.  Thus,  when  Huxley  wrote  to  a  friend  (John 
Morley)  that  the  thought  of  extinction  disturbed 
him  more  and  more  as  he  neared  the  end  of  life,  he 
fell  into  this  common  fallacy,  or  contradiction.  "It 
flashes  across  me,"  he  writes,  "at  all  sorts  of  times 
with  a  sort  of  horror  that  in  1903  I  shall  probably 
know  no  more  of  what  is  goinc;  on  than  I  did  in 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

1800. 1  had  sooner  be  in  hell,  a  good  deal  —  "  as  if  he 
expected  to  lie  awake  nights  in  his  grave  lamenting 
his  sad  fate  and  saying  to  himself,  "I  had  sooner  be 
in  hell,"  where  also  he  expected  he  would  be  con- 
scious of  his  improved  condition ! 

What  possible  difiference  could  it  make  to  him  if 
he  did  not  know  any  more  in  1900  than  he  did  in 
1800?  Did  he  expect  to  enjoy  his  knowledge  in  1900? 
If  not,  why  worry  about  it?  What  he  was  really  la- 
menting was  that  he  did  not  know  then  and  there 
what  he  might  know  if  he  Hved  till  1900.  He  knew 
that  human  knowledge  was  making  tremendous 
strides,  and  the  thought  that  he  should  not  share  in 
its  advancement  chilled  him. 

It  is  all  very  human,  but  very  childish.  We  may 
to-day  dread  some  task  or  ordeal  that  we  are  to  face 
to-morrow,  because  to-morrow  we  expect  to  be 
alive,  but  shall  w^e  shrink  from  the  to-morrow  of 
death  on  the  same  grounds? 

There  is  wisdom  as  well  as  wit  in  the  epitaph  in 
dialogue  which  a  clever  Greek  Byzantine  composed 
for  Pyrrho : 

"Art  thou  dead,  Pyrrho?" 

"I  do  not  know." 

If  we  put  the  same  question  to  our  own  dead,  if 
they  could  answer,  they  would  say,  "We  do  not 
know."  If  they  knew,  would  not  that  be  proof  that 
they  were  not  dead?  May  we  not  answer  Huxley 
that  if  consciousness  is  extinguished  with  life,  he  is 
286 


SOUNDINGS 

not  going  to  He  awake  nights  in  his  grave  worrying 
about  it?  There  is  comfort  in  the  thought  that  if 
there  is  no  immortaUty,  we  shall  not  know  it. 

Rereading  that  wise  and  delightful  old  French- 
man, Montaigne,  I  find  that  more  than  three  hun- 
dred years  ago  he  was  of  the  same  mind  that  I  am 
in  this  matter:  "Why  should  we  fear  a  thing  whose 
being  lost  cannot  be  lamented?"  "To  lament  that 
we  shall  not  be  alive  a  hundred  years  hence  is  the 
same  folly  as  to  be  sorry  we  were  not  alive  a  hun- 
dred years  ago." 

An  avaricious  man  might  worry  if  he  knew  he 
would  have  no  more  money  on  the  next  Christmas 
than  he  had  on  the  last,  unless  his  physician  had  as- 
sured him  that  he  could  not  be  alive  on  the  next 
Christmas.  Then,  if  he  worried,  it  would  be  on  ac- 
count of  his  heirs.  But  one's  heirs  cannot  inherit  his 
wisdom;  it  dies  with  him. 

Death  is  such  an  extraordinary,  such  an  un- 
speakable event  that  we  cannot  think  of  ourselves 
as  non-existent.  When  you  try  to  see  yourself  in 
your  own  coffin,  or  standing  beside  your  own  -grave, 
it  is  still  as  a  living  man  that  you  thus  behold  your- 
self. It  is,  of  course,  as  living  men  and  women  that 
we  are  disturbed  over  thoughts  of  the  grave.  The  fu- 
ture is  just  as  secure  for  us  all  as  is  the  past.  A  mo- 
ment between  two  eternities  is  life;  a  spark  that 
draws  a  brief  line  upon  the  darkness  and  is  gone. 
The  spark  has  its  antecedent  condition  in  the  wood 
287 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

and  coal  and  the  processes  of  combustion  from 
which  it  sprang,  and  it  has  its  subsequent  conditions 
in  the  invisible  gases  into  which  it  has  vanished,  but 
as  a  point  of  heat  and  hght,  it  exists  no  more.  Our 
wise  attitude  toward  death  is,  I  think,  to  forget  or 
ignore  it  entirely.  We  shall  not  know  it  when  it 
overtakes  us.  "Avida  nunquam  desinere  mortalitas." 
"  Men  must  endure  their  going  hence,  even  as 
their  coming  hither  —  ripeness  is  all." 

XI.   DEATH 
1 

In  death  the  elements  of  the  body  are  not  changed 
—  oxygen  is  still  oxygen,  carbon  still  carbon.  What 
has  happened,  then?  Can  it  be  explained  by  saying 
that  a  process  has  been  reversed?  Does  it  bear  any 
true  analogy  to  the  redistribution  of  type  after  the 
printer  has  set  it  up  and  printed  his  book?  The  type 
is  the  same,  but  the  relation  of  all  the  units  has  been 
changed.  The  printer  has  arranged  them  so  that 
collectively  they  expressed  to  him  certain  meanings 
or  ideas.  These  ideas  did  not  exist  in  the  type,  but  in 
the  order  of  its  arrangement.  In  one  order  or  com- 
bination the  letters  meant  one  thing;  in  another 
order  or  combination  they  expressed  quite  another. 
The  same  type  will  spell  dog  or  God.  When  redis- 
tributed and  returned  to  the  different  fonts,  the  let- 
ters express  nothing  but  themselves.  If  this  is  a  true 
analogy,  then,  in  the  case  of  the  living  book,  man, 
288 


SOUNDINGS 

what  stands  for  the  compositor  and  printer?  We  can 
only  call  the  compositor  the  organizing  impulse;  but 
whence  this  impulse,  and  whose  idea  is  it  trying  to 
express?  The  redistribution  of  the  elements  of  the 
body  is  done  through  the  activity  of  other  forms  of 
life  — the  micro-organisms  —  those  minute  forms 
reduce  the  body  to  its  original  elements.  As  we  thus 
have  life  at  the  end  of  the  life  of  an  organism,  do  we 
also  have  life  at  the  beginning  of  the  organism?  An- 
cestral life  certainly,  or  the  primordial  germ;  but  is 
there  a  living  principle  back  of  and  before  all?  Does 
the  logic  of  the  situation  force  us  to  the  belief  in  an 
original  Creator?  The  human  mind  is  so  constituted 
that  in  some  form  or  under  dejBnite  concepts,  we 
have  to  postulate  a  first  or  primal  Cause;  we  have  to 
think  of  a  beginning;  but  is  there  any  beginning  to 
a  circle,  or  any  center  to  the  surface  of  a  sphere? 
There  may  be  no  beginning  or  no  limit  in  time  or 
space  to  the  cosmos.  This  is  unthinkable  to  us  in  our 
present  state.  Yet  in  making  that  statement  I  am 
thinking  of  the  unthinkable.  We  can  deal  only  with 
parts  of  Nature;  as  a  whole  it  is  beyond  our  power 
to  grasp.  All  bodies  on  the  earth's  surface  unsup- 
ported fall;  this  is  our  universal  experience.  All 
moving  bodies  come  to  a  standstill  unless  power 
from  without  is  constantly  supplied.  Perpetual  mo- 
tion is  impossible,  but  the  earth  and  the  other  plan- 
ets are  unsupported,  and  their  motion  is  perpetual. 
Or  we  may  say  that  they  fall  forever  toward  the  sun 
289 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

and  never  reach  it,  and  that  the  sun  falls  forever 
toward  some  other  sun  or  system  and  never  reaches 
it.  The  laws  of  force  and  matter  as  we  contend 
with  them  in  our  experiences  are  inoperative  in 
sidereal  space;  there  is  motion  without  friction, 
energy  without  waste,  dissipation  without  exhaus- 
tion. Neither  upper  nor  under,  neither  falling  nor 
rising,  neither  end  nor  beginning.  Cause  and  effect, 
rest  and  motion,  are  one.  The  self-activity  of  the 
universe  quite  transcends  our  experiences;  the  self- 
maintenance  of  living  bodies  is  far  beyond  our 
reach;  any  end  to  the  chain  of  causal  sequence  is 
quite  unthinkable  to  us.  Our  minds  are  made  in 
that  way.  They  are  fashioned  in  the  school  of  cause 
and  effect. 

Nothing  can  get  out  of  the  universe  because  there 
is  no  out  to  the  universe.  Can  that  which  has  no 
ending  have  a  beginning?  Can  that  which  has  no 
circumference  have  a  center?  Can  we  think  of  any- 
thing so  hot  that  it  could  not  be  hotter?  Or  so  small 
that  it  could  not  be  smaller?  Or  so  big  that  it  could 
not  be  bigger?  No,  because  our  minds  have  been 
schooled  in  this  comparative  method.  Our  sense 
shows  us  a  world  of  degrees.  We  can  think  of  abso- 
lute darkness,  but  not  of  absolute  light.  In  the 
Mammoth  Cave  you  may  reaUze  absolute  darkness; 
but  even  on  the  sun  itself  would  you  experience  ab- 
solute hght?  We  seem  to  be  able  to  find  an  end  to 
the  negative,  but  not  to  the  positive.  We  can  think 
290 


SOUNDINGS 

of  a  body  as  at  absolute  rest,  but  can  we  conceive  of 
it  going  so  fast  that  it  could  not  go  faster? 

Death  is  our  consciousness  of  a  peculiar  change  in 
matter,  just  as  life  is  our  consciousness  of  the  oppo- 
site change  —  one  destructive,  the  other  construc- 
tive. The  constituents  of  the  body  remain  un- 
changed, but  a  pecuhar  activity  set  up  among  the 
particles,  by  what,  we  know  not,  is  instituted  in  life 
and  ceases  in  death.  An  organism  is  made  up  of 
organs,  all  working  together,  but  each  subordinated 
to  the  whole.  The  whole,  this  concerted  action,  may 
cease,  and  the  individual  dies,  as  we  say,  and  yet 
the  minute  subdivisions,  the  cells,  may  be  alive. 
Certain  ferments  in  the  body  may  go  on  for  some 
time  after  the  life  of  the  man  has  gone  out.  And  Hv- 
ing  cells  may  go  on  multiplying  endlessly  without 
producing  an  organized  being. 

II 

"  It  is  all  right,"  said  Walt  Whitman  to  me  as  I  was 
leaving  his  death-bed  and  hearing  his  voice  for  the 
last  time  —  "It  is  all  right."  Of  course  it  was  all 
right,  and  it  will  be  all  right  when  each  and  all  of  us 
fall  into  the  last  eternal  sleep.  Else  it  would  not  be. 
Our  being  here  is  all  right,  is  it  not.^^  "Friendly  and 
faithful,"  says  Whitman,  "are  the  arms  that  have 
helped  me,"  and  friendly  and  faithful  must  be  the 
arms  that  bear  us  away.  If  it  was  good  to  come,  it 
will  be  good  to  go  —  good  in  the  large,  cosmic  sense, 
291 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

good  in  that  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  All. 
Not  the  good  of  our  brief  personal  successes  and 
triumphs,  but  good  as  evolution  is  good,  as  the  proc- 
esses of  growth  and  decay  are  good.  If  life  is  good, 
death  must  be  equally  good,  as  each  waits  upon  the 
other.  From  what  point  of  view  can  we  say  that 
death  is  not  all  right?  Certainly  not  from  the  pomt 
of  view  of  this  universe.  Archimedes  could  have 
moved  the  world  had  he  had  some  other  world  upon 
which  to  place  his  lever,  and  we  must  have  some 
other  universe  to  plant  our  feet  upon  to  condemn 
death. 

As  I  have  already  said,  we  look  upon  death  as 
an  evil  because  we  look  upon  it  from  the  happy 
fields  of  life,  and  see  ourselves  as  alive  in  our 
graves  and  lamenting  that  we  are  shut  off  from  all 
the  light  and  love  and  movement  of  the  world. 
Does  our  prenatal  state  seem  an  evil? 

Did  anything  begin  de  novo,  when  we  came  into 
being?  Not  the  elements  of  our  bodies  surely;  they 
were  as  old  as  the  cosmos;  not  the  germ  of  our  minds 
and  souls;  they  were  as  old  as  the  human  race  and 
older  —  old  as  the  first  dawn  of  life.  Is  it  the  /  that 
is  new?  —  that  which  makes  you  you  and  me  me? 
And  that  is  probably  nothing  more  than  a  new  dis- 
tribution and  arrangement  of  the  physical  and  psy- 
chical elements  and  forces  of  which  and  by  which 
we  are  made.  The  pattern  of  our  personality  is  new; 
each  of  us  differs  somewhat  from  all  the  myriads  of 
292 


SOUNDINGS 

human  beings  who  have  Uved  upon  the  earth;  but 
is  form,  pattern,  personaUty,  separable  from  the 
material  that  composes  it? 

It  may  be  cheerfully  admitted  that  when  we  look 
at  the  question  in  this  Hght,  we  are  whistling  to 
keep  our  courage  up.  What  of  it?  The  band  plays  to 
keep  the  courage  of  the  soldiers  up  when  they  go 
into  battle,  and  what  are  we  but  soldiers  fighting 
the  good  fight  of  truth  against  error,  of  courage 
against  fear,  of  the  heroic  against  the  pusillanimous? 
The  whole  is  greater  than  any  of  its  parts.  Nature  is 
more  than  man.  We  must  learn  to  efface  ourselves. 
The  soul  knows  no  rewards  or  punishments.  If  it 
be  heroic  to  sacrifice  life  in  this  world,  it  may  be 
equally  heroic  to  sacrifice  life  in  any  other  world,  so 
that  we  prove  ourselves  worthy  of  the  gods. 

XII.    HEAVEN  AND  EARTH 

Truly  things  are  not  what  they  seem.  When  we 
put  heaven  and  earth  far  apart,  we  think  as  chil- 
dren. Heaven  and  earth  are  pretty  close  together. 
The  shortest  arm  can  reach  from  one  to  the  other. 
When  we  go  to  heaven  we  shall  not  have  far  to 
travel,  and  I  dare  say  the  other  place  is  quite  as 
near,  and,  if  reports  be  true,  the  road  is  broader  and 
easier  to  travel.  What  children  we  are  in  such  mat- 
ters !  The  wisest  men  have  the  language  of  ignorance 
and  superstition  imposed  upon  them.  How  diflScult 
it  is  not  to  think  of  the  heavens  up  there  as  a  reality, 
293 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

something  above  us  and  superior  to  us,  a  finer 
world,  nearer  God,  lighted  by  the  stars,  the  abode 
of  spirits,  the  source  of  all  good,  our  final  celestial 
home.  Did  not  Elijah  ascend  into  heaven?  Did  not 
Paul  have  heavenly  visions?  Have  not  the  saints 
in  all  ages  turned  their  faces  and  lifted  imploring 
hands  to  heaven?  How  these  things  have  burnt 
themselves  into  our  minds!  We  cannot  escape 
them. 

In  our  floods  of  reUgious  emotion  we  instinc- 
tively look  away  from  the  earth.  The  mystery,  the 
immensity,  the  purity  of  the  heavens  above  us  make 
us  turn  our  faces  thitherward,  and  as  naturally 
make  us  turn  downward  when  we  consider  the 
source  of  evil.  The  poor  old  earth  which  has  moth- 
ered us  and  nursed  us  we  treat  with  scant  respect. 
Our  awe  and  veneration  we  reserve  for  the  worlds 
we  know  not  of.  Our  senses  sell  us  out.  The  mud  on 
our  shoes  disenchants  us.  It  is  only  Whitman  with 
his  cosmic  consciousness  that  can  closely  relate  the 
heavens  and  the  earth: 

"  Underneath  the  divine  soil, 
^'  Overhead  the  sun." 

To  most  of  us  the  morning  stars  that  once  sang 
together  are  of  another  stuff.  The  music  of  the 
spheres  must  be  vastly  diflPerent  from  the  roar  and 
grind  of  our  old  rusty  and  outworn  planet.  So  we 
turn  to  the  heavens,  the  abode  of  purity  and  light. 
So  do  we  discount  and  black-list  the  earth  where  we 
294 


SOUNDINGS 

have  to  pay  in  struggle  and  pain  the  price  of  our 
development.  Think  you  we  should  not  have  to  pay 
the  same  price  in  any  other  world  worth  living  in? 

Emerson  in  his  Journal  quotes  his  brother  Charles 
as  saying  long  ago  that  "the  nap  was  worn  off  the 
earth";  it  was  become  threadbare,  hke  an  outworn 
garment.  Probably  it  seems  so  to  each  of  us  as  time 
goes  on.  In  places  in  Europe  the  nap  must  be  very 
short  at  this  time.  But  the  nap  will  come  again,  even 
on  those  shell-swept  regions,  after  Nature  has  had 
her  way.  Nature  grows  old  in  geologic  or  in  cosmic 
time;  the  mountains  decay,  the  waters  recede;  but 
in  man's  time  the  earth  is  endowed  with  perennial 
youth. 

Science  strips  us  of  our  illusions  and  delusions ;  it 
strips  us  of  most  of  the  garments  in  which  the  spirit 
of  man  has  sought  in  all  ages  to  clothe  itself  against 
the  chill  of  an  impersonal  universe;  it  takes  down 
the  protecting  roof  of  the  heavens  above  us  and 
shows  us  an  unspeakable  void  strewn  with  suns  and 
worlds  beyond  numbers  to  compute,  but  nowhere 
any  signs  of  the  blessed  abode  to  which  our  religious 
aspirations  have  pointed. 

It  is  interesting,  in  this  connection,  to  note  the 
attitude  of  the  old  writers,  such  as  Cornaro,  the 
Italian,  toward  the  heavens.  They  evidently  look 
upon  the  heavens  as  outside  of  Nature.  In  speculat- 
ing as  to  why  it  is  that  some  persons  have  so  little 
vitahty,  Cornaro  reckons  the  influence  of  the  heav- 
295 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

ens  may  be  one  cause.  He  says  he  never  could  per- 
suade himself  to  believe  that  Nature,  being  the 
mother  of  all,  could  be  so  ungenerous  to  any  of  her 
children;  hence  it  must  be  some  hostile  influence 
from  above.  Similar  notions  seem  to  have  been  held 
in  Shakespeare's  time: 

"  It  is  the  stars. 
The  stars  above  us,  govern  our  conditions; 
Else  one  self  mate  and  make  could  not  beget 
*&uch  different  issues." 

XIII.    THINKING  AND  ACTING 

It  is  true  we  do  not,  as  a  rule,  act  without  thinking, 
or  without  some  sort  of  psychic  process,  but  think- 
ing and  acting  are  radically  different.  Or,  we  may 
say  that  the  practical  reason  is  alone  concerned  in 
action,  and  the  abstract  intellect  in  general  reason- 
ing. When  we  come  to  act,  we  know  that  we  are  free 
to  choose  between  two  or  more  objects  or  courses; 
when  we  think  or  reason  abstractly,  we  know  the 
will  is  not  free.  Every  act  has  its  antecedent  cause. 
But  we  are  practically  free  because  we  feel  no  re- 
straint or  compulsion.  We  feel  responsible  for  our 
acts.  We  do  not  blame  our  red-haired  father,  or  our 
grandfather  of  Irish  blood,  for  our  hasty  temper;  we 
feel  that  this  is  our  very  selves.  What  we  call  moral 
responsibility  rests  upon  this  sense  of  freedom.  We 
are  not  aware  of  the  fatality  that  binds  us,  any 
more  than  we  are  of  the  weight  of  the  atmosphere 
296 


SOUNDINGS 

that  presses  upon  us  so  tremendously.  At  the  court 
of  absolute  reason  we  see  what  puppets  and  autom- 
ata we  are,  but  at  the  court  of  practical  justice  we 
see  and  feel  that  we  are  free  to  do  right  as  we  see  the 
right.  The  contradictions  which  Balfour  sees,  in  his 
chapter  on  "Naturalism  and  Ethics,"  between  the 
results  of  practical  life  and  of  abstract  reasoning  is 
of  a  kind  which  one  sees  everywhere  in  the  universe. 
The  circle  is  a  perpetual  contradiction.  How  can  a 
line  go  in  all  directions?  —  and  in  no  direction?  In 
our  practical  lives  there  is  an  upper  and  an  under, 
an  up  and  a  down,  but  away  from  the  earth,  or  con- 
,  sidering  the  earth  as  a  whole,  there  is  no  such  thing. 

Righteous  indignation  at  the  misconduct  of  oth- 
ers, or  self-condemnation,  repentance,  remorse,  are 
reasonable  feelings  because  we  actually  feel  them. 
We  have  no  choice  in  the  matter.  To  whatever  con- 
clusion abstract  reason  leads  us  in  regard  to  them, 
it  does  not  affect  our  practical  conduct,  because  our 
conduct  is  founded  upon  the  sense  of  freedom.  We 
are  here  to  act,  to  do,  and  not  to  reason  abstractly. 
This  is  the  tree  of  the  forbidden  fruit.  When  we  eat 
of  it  we  know  things  that  may  stand  in  the  way  of 
our  practical  living.  Balfour  should  see  that  we  are 
determinists  or  naturists  when  we  reason,  but  free 
agents  when  we  act,  and  that  there  is  no  getting 
away  from  the  contradiction. 

I  may  be  the  duphcate  of  my  father,  or  of  my 
grandfather;  every  one  of  my  traits  may  be  inher- 
297 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

ited;  but  that  does  not  prevent  me  from  feeling  that 
they  are  my  own;  they  are  vital  in  me  as  they  were 
in  him,  and  I  feel  responsible  for  my  own  acts 
just  as  he  did  for  his,  though  I  could  not  act  other- 
wise. I  could  not,  but  I  did  not  know  it.  I  thought  I 
could  act  as  I  pleased. 

The  world  which  philosophy  reveals  to  us  is 
vastly  different  from  the  world  practical  life  reveals. 
We  are  sure  that  light  and  sound  are  real  entities, 
but  philosophy  tells  us  that  one  is  the  sensation 
which  vibrations  in  the  ether,  set  going  by  the  sun, 
make  upon  the  optic  nerve,  and  that  sound  is  the 
sensation  which  vibrations  in  the  air  make  upon  the 
auditory  nerve.  When  we  know  this  we  do  not 
change  our  action  in  reference  to  them  —  they  are 
still  just  as  real  to  our  senses  as  ever  they  were.  The 
moral  law  is  not  discredited  or  overthrown  when  we 
discover  through  the  abstract  reason  that  fate,  or 
necessity,  rules  our  lives.  We  made  the  moral  law 
and  we  try  to  live  up  to  it.  We  do  not  always  suc- 
ceed. All  trees  aim  at  the  vertical  position;  it  is  the 
position  which  gravity  imposes  upon  them ;  but  ow- 
ing to  various  accidents  and  conditions  the  trees  are 
not  all  plumb.  How  free  they  seem  to  grow  at  al- 
most any  angle  with  the  plane  of  the  earth's  surface ! 
How  they  run  out  their  branches  horizontally  in 
defiance  of  the  gravity  that  rules  them  and  lift  up 
in  their  trunks  and  leaves  tons  of  water  and  other 
mmerals  against  the  pull  of  gravity !  How  free  they 
298 


SOUNDINGS 

seem,  how  they  bend  to  the  wind  that  would  over- 
throw them,  how  various  they  are  in  form  and  habit 
of  growth,  in  the  shape  of  their  leaves,  the  kinds  of 
their  fruits,  the  character  of  their  roots !  Yet  science 
shows  us  how  the  unalterable  physical  laws  rule 
them.  They  lean  toward  the  light  and  the  free  air  in 
obedience  to  physical  and  chemical  laws.  And  yet, 
no  doubt,  if  the  trees  were  conscious  of  themselves, 
as  we  are,  every  oak-tree  would  say,  "  I  feel  free  to 
be  an  oak,"  and  every  pine-tree  and  beech  and  wil- 
low and  maple  would  feel  a  like  freedom.  The  Irish- 
man feels  no  compulsion  or  necessity  in  being  an 
Irishman,  nor  the  Frenchman  in  being  a  French- 
man. All  life  is  held  in  the  leash  of  physical  and 
chemical  laws,  and  yet  knows  it  not. 

We  feel  that  there  is  beauty  in  nature;  when  we 
reflect,  we  know  that  the  feeling  for  beauty  is  an 
emotion  of  our  own  minds,  and  not  a  quality  of  out- 
ward things.  Scenes  radically  different  awaken  the 
emotion  in  us,  or  may  awaken  it  in  one  and  not  in 
another  (see  Emerson's  ecstasy  on  a  bare  moor). 
The  world  is  what  we  make  it,  and  duty  is  what  we 
make  it,  and  the  ugly  is  what  we  make  it.  Putrefac- 
tion, repulsive  to  us,  is  to  science  a  beautiful  chemi- 
cal process.  Odors  that  are  offensive  to  us  are  evi- 
dently agreeable  to  the  dog.  Sounds  which  please  us 
seem  to  disturb  him.  The  absolute  is  outside  of  life. 
If  the  orbs  of  the  heavens  were  conscious,  they 
would  doubtless  feel  free  to  go  where  they  do  go;  it 
299 


ACCEPTING  THE  UXHTRSE 

would  be  their  choice;  it  would  pain  them  to  do 
otherwise.  The  comet  rushes  toward  the  sun  with 
Joy;  the  music  of  the  spheres  is  the  expression  of 
their  freedom  and  contentment.  Can  you  help  wak- 
ing when  the  flashlight  goes  oflP,  or  when  a  missile 
passes  near  your  eyes?  Our  voluntary  actions  are 
equally  based  upon  physical  laws. 

Balfour,  in  his  "Foundation  of  Behef,"  talks 
about  the  beauty  of  holiness,  the  beauty  of  sanctity, 
but  these  things  are  beautiful  only  to  a  certain  type 
of  mind.  The  time  will  come  when  they  will  not  be 
looked  upon  as  beautiful  or  desirable.  These  con- 
ceptions grew  when  men  lived  for  another  world, 
when  this  world  stood  to  them  as  the  sum  of  evil. 
Men  then  saw  nothing  holy  or  divine  on  earth  ex- 
cept the  denying  of  earth.  That  state  of  mind  has 
largely  passed.  Holy  men  have  had  their  day.  We  see 
now  that  this  world  is  a  celestial  body,  and  that  all 
our  conceptions  of  heavenly  abodes  are  untenable. 
For  my  part  the  most  lovable  and  admirable  men 
and  women  I  have  known  had  no  savor  of  sanctity. 
They  were  wise,  kind,  helpful,  loving,  living  with 
zest  the  life  of  every  day,  intent  on  making  their 
earthly  hves  square  with  what  is  generally  accepted 
as  right  conduct,  and  therefore  comfortably  indif- 
ferent to  what  the  theologians  are  so  concerned 
about  —  salvation  after  death,  and  the  securing  of 
their  "mansions  in  the  skies."  Martyrdom  bravely 
faced  excites  our  admiration,  all  heroic  acts  are 
300 


SOUNDINGS 

beautiful  and  admirable,  and  there  are  good  natu- 
ralistic reasons  why  this  should  be  so.  But  our  re- 
ligious history'  has  begotten  a  whole  brood  of  ideas 
that  must  gradually  fade  and  go  out,  and  our  stand- 
ards will  more  and  more  be  those  of  this  world. 

Mr.  Balfour  would  hardly  deny  that  the  organ 
with  which  we  do  our  thinking  and  reasoning  and 
form  our  deductions,  the  organ  which  is  the  seat  of 
our  emotions  of  the  beautiful  and  of  rehgious  as- 
pirations, is  a  mass  of  gray  and  white  matter,  and 
that  all  these  things  are  the  result  of  certain  molec- 
ular changes  or  movements  in  the  fluids  or  solids  of 
the  brain  substance  ;  in  other  words,  that  there  is  a 
physical  and  physiological  basis  to  all  our  mental 
and  emotional  life.  Does  this  material  side  in  any 
way  discredit  these  faculties  and  feelings?  Does  not 
all  that  we  call  the  spiritual  adhere  in  the  material? 
Can  we  find  that  inner  world,  or  any  clue  to  it,  by 
dissecting  the  brain?  Has  it,  therefore,  any  reality 
except  in  our  imagination?  Prove  that  it  exists 
apart  from  or  independent  of  the  body,  and  there  is 
no  more  to  be  said. 

But  what  I  wanted  most  to  say  is  that  the  reason 
of  things,  or  final  explanation  of  things  seems  to  take 
the  poetry  and  romance  out  of  them.  Reduce  re- 
ligion or  aesthetics  or  art  to  terms  of  psychology, 
and  they  no  longer  appeal  to  the  emotions  or  stimu- 
late the  imagination.  Naturalism  is  true  —  reason 
can  reach  no  other  conclusion  —  but  the  truths  of 
301 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

naturalism  do  not  satisfy  the  moral  and  religious 
nature. 

The  heart  is  a  big,  strong,  self-acting,  muscular 
pump,  but  when  we  lay  our  hand  upon  the  heart 
and  refer  our  emotions,  our  love,  our  aspirations,  to 
it,  we  idealize  it,  we  do  not  then  think  of  its  physical 
function  and  character.  By  this  act  we  are  still  de- 
ferring to  the  ancient  and  outworn  belief  that  in 
this  region  resides  the  soul  —  the  part  of  man  that 
loves  and  hates  and  hopes  and  fears. 

The  brain  is  the  temple  of  the  mind  or  the  vesti- 
bule of  the  spiritual  world,  but  we  can  explain  it 
only  in  terms  of  anatomy,  physiology,  and  physics 
which  darken  and  chill  our  sensibilities. 

Things  and  movements  come  about  through 
natural  processes,  not  through  supernatural  ones, 
but  when  we  state  these  processes  in  the  only  terms 
in  which  they  can  be  stated,  the  religious  soul  feels 
hurt  and  orphaned.  All  our  religious  or  theological 
explanations  of  things  discredit  matter  and  the  ma- 
terial world,  discredit  Nature  and  all  her  processes. 
Evolution  is  anti-religious;  that  man  is  of  animal 
origin  is  still  a  hard  doctrine  to  the  old-fashioned 
theologian.  Why  is  it  not  equally  a  hard  doctrine  to 
him  that  we  were  ever  babies  or  embryos,  carried 
about  and  associated  with  the  viscera  of  our  moth- 
ers' bodies?  We  have  got  to  exalt  the  natural,  the 
material,  and  free  our  minds  from  the  illusions  of  the 
old  theologies  before  we  can  see  the  truth  and 
302 


SOUNDINGS 

beauty  of  naturalism.  The  sacred,  the  celestial,  the 
divine,  the  holy,  all  are  terms  that  date  from  a  pre- 
scientific  age,  before  man's  relation  to  the  universe 
was  understood.  They  are  significant  only  in  refer- 
ence to  another  world  and  another  life  of  an  entirely 
different  order. 

The  eternal,  immutable  moral  law  to  which 
Balfour  refers,  what  is  it?  Who  instituted  it?  Is  it 
other  than  the  law  of  right  and  wrong  which  man- 
kind is  coming  more  and  more  clearly  to  see,  and 
more  and  more  fully  to  value  in  the  course  of  evolu- 
tion? You  may  set  the  seal  of  some  hypothetical, 
supernatural  power  upon  it,  but  what  about  super- 
natural powers  in  a  universe  governed  by  natural 
laws?  The  religious  enthusiasm  of  the  race,  the 
saints,  the  devotees,  the  so-called  holy  ones,  have 
doubtless  had  their  value;  they  have  helped  lubri- 
cate the  grinding  machinery  of  life;  but  their  day 
is  at  an  end.  We  must  invest  our  fund  of  love,  our 
veneration,  our  heroism,  our  martyrdom  in  this 
world,  and  not  look  to  the  next. 

That  Nature  is  irrational,  unhuman,  no  one  can 
deny,  not  because  she  is  less,  but  because  she  is 
more;  she  is  above  reason,  above  man.  Our  reason 
calls  Nature  irrational  because  the  reason  is  a  special 
faculty,  and  is  limited;  it  takes  in  the  arc,  so  to 
speak,  but  not  the  full  circle.  Nature  is  irrational, 
not  because  she  is  not  suffused  with  mind,  but  be- 
cause she  does  not  count  the  cost,  because  our 
303 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

economies  do  not  fit  her  especial  scheme.  Life  is 
synonymous  with  intelhgence;  all  organic  nature 
shows  the  working  of  the  primal  mind  —  the  adap- 
tation of  means  to  specific  ends,  and  the  steady 
improvement  from  lower  to  higher. 

"WTiat  we  think,  when  trying  to  render  an  ac- 
count to  the  reason  of  the  enigma  of  life,  often  has 
little  relation  to  what  we  do,  as  practical,  struggling 
beings.  We  are  free  to  think  in  all  directions,  free  to 
move  in  but  few.  Our  thoughts  are  like  the  vapors 
that  drift  with  the  winds,  or  that  expand  equally  in 
all  directions.  Our  actual  lives  are  like  the  waters 
that  must  flow  in  definite  channels,  and  turn  some 
wheel  or  irrigate  some  tract  of  land,  or  quench  some 
creature's  thirst.  That  naturalism,  with  minds  which 
take  an  interest  in  it,  should  result  in  low  standards 
of  life,  or  in  any  form  of  disorder  or  failure,  I  do  not 
believe.  Only  clear,  strong,  truth-loving  spirits  can 
accept  this  explanation  of  things.  Much  more 
mentality  is  demanded  than  is  demanded  by  the  old 
conceptions.  Hence  one  has  to  face  the  terrible  re- 
alities and  discipline  the  spirit  to  accept  them.  In 
the  old  views,  in  supernaturalism,  all  this  is  done 
for  one  by  the  Church  and  one  is  a  member  of  a 
personally  conducted  party  to  heaven. 

XIV.    THE  TIDE  OF  LIFE 

We  cannot  find  God  by  thinking.  Thinking  starts 

us  on  an  endless  quest.  We  can  find  neither  end  nor 

304 


SOUNDINGS 

beginning  to  the  sequence  of  cause  and  effect.  It  is  a 
circle  that  ends  and  begins  forever  in  itself.  Men 
find  what  they  call  God  in  action,  in  experience, 
because  in  these  practical  dealings  with  the  forces 
of  this  world  they  are  under  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect.  They  find  beginnings  and  endings,  they  find 
an  upper  and  an  under  side,  they  find  a  lower  and  a 
higher,  a  greater  and  a  smaller:  but  in  thought  all 
things  are  relative.  Some  wise  man  has  said  that  if 
there  were  no  God,  we  should  have  to  invent  one  — 
invent  one  if  we  wish  to  explain  the  world  in  the 
terms  of  human  experience.  Thinking  turns  the 
world  topsy-turvy. 

Our  religious  natures  are  still  Ptolemaic.  The 
heavens  still  revolve  around  us.  We  do  not  with 
the  eye  of  the  flesh  see  ourselves  in  this  world  as  on 
a  sphere  —  on  a  celestial  body  floating  in  space;  we 
see  ourselves  as  on  an  endless  plain  over  and  under 
which  the  heavenly  bodies  pass.  It  is  only  with  the 
eye  of  the  mind  that  we  see  things  in  their  true  re- 
lation and  see  that  there  is  no  up  and  no  down,  no 
under  and  no  over,  apart  from  the  earth,  and  no 
God  who  rules  as  a  ruler  rules.  We  do  not  gain  the 
tremendous  facts  of  astronomy  through  our  every- 
day experience;  our  search  after  scientific  truth  re- 
veals them  to  us.  Through  this  inquiry  we  see  the 
grand  voyage  we  are  making  among  the  stars,  and 
see  that  the  heavens  are  not  a  realm  apart  from  us, 
the  abode  of  superior  beings,  but  are  our  veritable 
305 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

habitat;  that  our  earth  is  a  celestial  body  among 
myriads  of  others,  and  that  when  we  solemnly  lift 
our  eyes  heavenward,  we  are  hfting  them  to  other 
worlds  made  of  the  same  stuff  as  our  own.  Our  re- 
ligious emotions  and  aspirations  lead  us  to  look 
away  from  the  earth  and  to  imagine  finer  and  fairer 
realms,  but  disinterested  science  does  not  humor 
our  illusions;  it  brings  us  back  to  earth  again, 
back  to  the  heaven  we  despise.  Hence  the  trouble 
the  narrow  religious  nature  has  with  science.  It 
experiences  a  cold  shudder  before  its  revelations 
and  will  none  of  it.  It  will  have  beginnings  and 
endings,  boundaries  and  limitations,  heavenly  and 
earthly,  and  will  read  the  impersonal  laws  of  the 
universe  in  terms  of  our  personal  human  needs 
and  relations.  It  sets  up  a  judge  and  ruler  of  cre- 
ation modeled  on  our  human  plan,  and  then  to 
get  out  of  the  dilemma  in  which  it  finds  itself,  with 
all  the  sin  and  misery  and  injustice  of  the  world 
which  it  finds  upon  its  hands,  and  which  omnipotent 
love  and  mercy  could  never  tolerate,  dopes  itself 
with  theological  casuistry  that  seeks  to  justify  the 
ways  of  God  to  man.  It  is  a  world-old  problem.  The 
only  way  I  see  out  of  it  is  by  purging  our  minds  of  the 
old  dogmas  and  boldly  facing  the  reality  as  science 
shows  it  to  us.  Religion  as  the  world  has  so  long 
used  the  term  —  that  human  mixture  of  fear, 
reverence,  superstition,  and  selfish  desire  —  has 
had  its  day.  We  may  still  marvel  and  love  and  ad- 
306 


SOUNDINGS 

mire  and  rejoice,  but.  let  us  fear  and  plead  and 
tremble  no  more.  There  is  nothing  to  be  afraid  of 
worse  than  ourselves,  and  nothing  to  implore  and 
propitiate  farther  removed  from  us  than  the  rain 
and  the  sunshine.  In  the  end  all  things  work  to- 
gether for  our  good  —  not  always  for  the  good  of 
to-day,  or  of  to-morrow,  or  for  this  man  or  that 
man,  but  for  the  good  of  all,  for  the  good  which 
evolution  brings  in  its  train.  Evolution  brings  what 
we  call  evil  also,  but  evil  is  a  term  of  our  human  ex- 
perience, and  the  Infinite,  the  Eternal,  knows  it  not. 
What  is  evil  to  one  creature  in  the  struggle  for  life 
we  have  seen  to  be  good  to  another,  and  often 
what  our  religious  fears  recoil  from,  science  sees 
as  the  beneficent  operation  of  law.  In  Nature  noth- 
ing is  unclean;  her  chemistry  meets  and  appropri- 
ates all,  even  when  we  flee  or  faint.  Our  physical 
well-being  forces  upon  us  the  conception  of  the 
clean  and  the  unclean,  but  in  the  processes  of  the 
Nature  that  sustains  us  both  are  one. 

We  are  adjustable  creatures.  We  are  r/either 
sugar  nor  salt,  neither  round  nor  square,  neither 
iron  nor  lead;  we  yield  and  we  resist,  we  melt  and 
we  freeze.  We  are  as  adjustable  and  as  adaptive  as 
the  leaves  of  the  forest.  The  firmly  woven  texture  of 
the  leaf,  its  mobile  stem,  the  flexible  branch  to  which 
it  clings,  make  it  secure  against  the  ordinary  vicissi- 
tudes to  which  it  is  subject. 

Man  is  the  most  adaptive  of  all  creatures;  he  is 
307 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

as  local  as  the  turtle,  and  as  cosmopolitan  as  the 
eagle.  All  climes,  all  conditions  of  wet  and  dry,  of 
plain  and  mountain,  of  sea  and  shore,  of  island 
and  continent,  are  his.  His  home  is  the  world. 
Lately  he  has  conquered  the  air  with  forces  of  the 
earth.  Will  he  yet  conquer  the  ether  with  forces 
of  the  air?  Already  the  ether  conveys  his  messages, 
but  no  mechanical  contrivance  of  his  can  yet  lay 
hands  upon  it. 

Let  me  again  say  that  by  the  Natural  Providence 
I  mean  the  general  beneficence  of  Nature,  the 
bUnd,  undiscriminating,  uncalculating,  inevitable 
beneficence  which  brought  us  here  and  keeps  us 
here,  and  makes  it  good  for  us  to  be  alive,  despite 
the  vicissitudes  and  the  occasional  apparently  lesser 
phases  of  malevolence  to  which  we  are  subject. 
The  changing  seasons,  the  fertile  soils,  the  rains, 
the  dews,  the  snows,  the  blue  skies,  the  green  earth, 
the  fl:owing  streams,  the  gentle  winds,  in  fact  all 
the  conditions  that  make  life  possible  and  per- 
manent, are  expressions  of  this  beneficence.  The 
whole  movement  of  evolution,  with  all  its  dark  and 
forbidding  phases,  is  an  expression  of  it.  Allow  time 
enough  and  the  turbid  stream  flows  itself  clear,  and 
the  stream  of  evolution  is  fast  losing,  has  lost,  most 
of  its  terrible  and  repellent  features.  At  its  flood,  in 
earlier  geologic  times,  one  may  say  that  its  waters 
were  charged  with  the  elements  of  huge,  uncouth, 
and  terrible  forms  which  have  been  mostly  elimi- 
308 


SOUNDINGS 

nated;  the  current  has  cleared  and  purified  as  It 
advanced;  the  dragons  and  monsters  have  nearly- 
disappeared;  the  reptiles  have  receded  and  left  the 
fowl  and  birds;  the  saurians  are  gone,  and  in  their 
stead  we  have  the  more  comely  and  useful  forms  of 
mammalian  life.  From  our  human  point  of  view  — 
and  we  can  have  no  other  —  creation  has  refined. 
The  tide  of  life  is  still  like  a  river  that  has  its  noi- 
some and  unlovely  margins,  but  how  has  it  cleared 
and  sweetened  since  Permian  and  Jurassic  times! 
The  scale  of  animal  life  has  changed,  less  bone  and 
muscle  and  more  nerve  and  brains,  less  emphasis 
laid  upon  size  and  more  upon  wit.  Only  in  the  in- 
sect world  are  the  dragons  and  monsters,  and  the 
carnival  of  blood  and  slaughter,  repeated.  In  the 
shade  of  a  summer  tree,  or  in  a  clover-field,  one  may 
see  minute  creatures  pursuing  or  devouring  one 
another  which,  if  enough  times  magnified,  would 
rival  any  of  the  dragons  of  the  prime. 

XV.   FAITH  FOUNDED  UPON  A  ROCK 
I 

Probably  that  overwhelming  calamity,  the  World 
War,  set  more  good  people  adrift  upon  the  sea  of 
religious  doubt  and  skepticism  than  all  the  ac- 
cumulated evils  of  the  past  ten  centuries.  Men  were 
everywhere  outspoken  in  their  want  of  faith  in  the 
Providence  in  which  they  had  so  long  trusted.  I 
heard  of  an  English  clergyman  who  declared  that 
309 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

if  the  Germans  won  in  the  war  he  would  never  open 
his  Bible  again.  Another  Enghsh  parson,  with  the 
thought  of  the  war  weighing  upon  him,  pubhshed  a 
volume  of  discourses  which  he  called  "  The  Justifi- 
cation of  God."  But  judging  from  my  own  ex- 
periences with  the  book,  the  lay  mind  will  find  the 
grounds  for  justification  as  hard  a  riddle  to  read  as 
the  original  one. 

Only  a  faith  founded  upon  the  rock  of  natural  law 
can  weather  such  a  storm  as  the  world  passed 
through  in  the  Great  War,  but  unfortunately  such 
a  faith  is  possible  to  comparatively  few  —  the 
faith  that  the  universe  is  radically  good  and  benefi- 
cent, and  that  the  evils  of  life  grow  upon  the  same 
tree  with  the  good,  and  that  the  fruits  called  evil 
bear  only  a  small  proportion  to  those  called  good. 
Persons  who  do  not  read  the  book  of  nature  as  a 
whole,  who  do  not  try  their  faith  by  the  records  of 
the  rocks  and  the  everlasting  stars,  who  are  obliv- 
ious to  the  great  law  of  evolution  which  has  worked 
out  the  salvation  of  man  and  of  all  living  things, 
through  good  and  ill  report,  through  delays  and 
sufferings  and  agonies  incalculable,  but  the  issues 
of  which  have  been  unfailing,  who  do  not  see  the 
natural  universal  order  working  in  the  fiery  ordeal 
through  which  all  nations  during  the  historic  pe- 
riod have  passed,  who  have  not  learned  that  the 
calamities  of  men  and  of  peoples  are  not  the  re- 
sult of  the  wrath  of  some  offended  divinity,  but  the 
310 


SOUNDINGS 

ups  and  downs  in  the  long,  hard  road  of  human 
development,  and  that,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
justice  is  meted  out  to  all  men  —  if  not  in  a  day, 
then  in  a  year,  or  in  a  thousand  years;  if  not  to  the 
individual,  then  to  his  family,  or  to  his  race  — 
those  who  take  no  account  of  all  these  things  soon 
lose  their  reckoning  in  times  like  ours. 

Every  good  deed,  every  noble  thought,  counts  in 
the  counsels  of  the  Eternal.  Every  bad  deed,  every 
ignoble  thought,  counts  also.  But  the  stream  tends 
to  purify  itself;  the  world  is  thus  made;  evil  is 
real,  but  short-lived;  the  remedial  forces  of  life  and 
nature  burn  it  up  or  convert  it  into  good.  Our  fer- 
tile landscapes  are  the  result  of  the  wear  and  tear  of 
geologic  ages;  fire,  flood,  tornadoes,  earthquakes, 
volcanoes,  have  all  had  a  share  in  shaping  them. 
Decay  and  death  have  fed  the  sources  of  life.  Our 
own  history  as  a  people  and  the  history  of  the 
European  countries  exhibit  a  like  contrast  and  min- 
gling of  good  and  evil.  We  are  too  personal  in  our  es- 
timates, too  limited  in  our  perspectives;  thoughts 
of  our  own  comforts  and  private  aims  are  too  much 
with  us.  We  must  give  Providence  the  advantage 
of  a  wiser  perspective. 

The  thoughtful  mind,  capable  of  viewing  these 
things  on  a  bigger  scale,  does  not  need  a  world 
calamity  to  reveal  the  unsatisfactory  character  of 
the  reigning  gods.  The  daily  course  of  events  does 
that.  Infantile  paralysis,  for  example,  with  its  long 
311 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

train  of  the  crippled,  unoffending  children,  or  a 
man  being  slowly  eaten  up  with  cancer,  or  a  mother 
losing  her  life  in  trying  to  save  her  child  from  flood 
and  fire,  and  scores  of  other  similar  things,  show  what 
a  thin  veneer  our  theology  puts  upon  ugly  facts. 

Our  ecclesiastical  faith  must  be  housed  in  churches 
and  kept  warm  by  vestments.  The  moment  we  take 
it  out  into  the  open  and  expose  it  to  unroofed  and 
unwarmed  universal  nature,  it  is  bound  to  suffer 
from  the  cosmic  chill.  For  my  part,  I  do  not  have  to 
take  my  faith  in  out  of  the  wet  and  the  cold.  It  is  an 
open-air  faith,  an  all-the-year-round  faith;  neither 
killing  frosts  nor  killing  heats  disturb  it;  not 
tornadoes  nor  earthquakes  nor  wars  nor  pestilence 
nor  famine  make  me  doubt  for  one  moment  that 
the  universe  is  sound  and  good.  The  forces  which 
brought  us  here  and  provided  so  lavishly  for  our 
sustenance  and  enjoyment;  that  gave  us  our  bod- 
ies and  our  minds;  that  endowed  us  with  such 
powers;  that  surrounded  us  with  such  beauty  and 
sublimity;  that  brought  us  safely  through  the  long 
and  hazardous  journey  of  evolution;  that  gave  us 
the  summer  sun,  the  midnight  skies,  and  the  re- 
volving seasons;  that  gave  human  love  and  fellow- 
ship and  cooperation,  childhood,  motherhood,  and 
fatherhood,  and  the  sense  of  justice  and  mercy,  are 
beneficent  and  permanent  forces.  They  are  directed 
to  me  personally  because  they  are  directed  to  all 
that  live;  they  are  the  cause  of  the  living,  the 
312 


SOUNDINGS 

essence  and  the  sum  of  all  life  of  the  globe.  I  do  not 
mind  if  you  call  them  terrestrial  forces;  the  terres- 
trial and  the  celestial  are  one.  I  do  not  mind  if  you 
call  them  material  forces;  the  material  and  the 
spiritual  are  inseparable.  I  do  not  mind  if  you  call 
this  view  the  infidelity  (or  atheism)  of  science; 
science,  too,  is  divine;  all  knowledge  is  knowledge  of 
God. 

I  have  never  taken  shelter  in  any  form  of  ec- 
clesiasticism.  I  have  never  tried  to  clothe  myself  in 
the  delusive  garments  of  a  superstitious  age.  I  have 
never  pinned  my  faith  to  a  man-made  God,  however 
venerable.  I  have  inured  my  mind  to  the  open  air 
of  the  universe,  to  things  as  they  are,  to  the  deahngs 
of  a  Power  that  exacts  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth;  a  power  that  deals  on  the  square. 
Those  apparent  outlaws  of  the  heavens,  the  comets, 
do  not  disturb  the  naturist;  sidereal  space  strewn 
with  dead  worlds  and  burnt-out  suns  do  not  dis- 
turb him;  the  spectacle  of  the  great  planets  rolling 
through  space  void  of  life  for  untold  millions  of 
years,  does  not  disturb  him;  and  if  life  should  never 
come  to  them,  and  should  ultimately  disappear  from 
the  earth,  he  would  not  lose  faith;  he  could  behold 
Europe  drenched  with  the  blood  of  a  needless, 
wicked  war  and  not  lose  faith ;  he  could  see  civili- 
zation retarded  and  the  unjust  cause  triumph,  and 
still  know  that  the  Creative  Energy  has  our  good  at 
heart  and  always  will  have  it. 
313 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 


II 

The  demand  of  our  day  is  for  a  scientific  religion  — 
an  attitude  of  mind  toward  creation  begotten  by 
knowledge,  in  which  fear,  personal  hopes,  individual 
good,  and  the  so-called  "other  world,"  play  little 
part.  Virtuous  actions,  upright  conduct,  heroic 
character,  the  practice  of  the  Golden  Rule,  are  seen 
to  be  their  own  reward,  and  the  security  of  the 
future  is  in  well-doing  and  well-being  in  the  present. 
This  is  not  religion  in  the  old  ecclesiastical  sense, 
but  in  the  new  scientific  sense;  a  religion  that  moves 
us  to  fight  vice,  crime,  war,  intemperance,  for  self- 
preservation  and  in  brotherly  love,  and  not  in  obedi- 
ence to  theological  dogma  or  the  command  of  a  God; 
a  reUgion  that  opens  our  eyes  to  the  wonder  and 
beauty  of  the  world,  and  that  makes  us  at  home  in 
this  world.  The  old  religion  is  a  tree  that  has  borne 
its  fruit.  It  is  dying  at  the  top;  it  is  feeble  at  the 
root.  It  no  longer  touches  men's  lives  as  of  old.  The 
great  things  that  are  done  to-day  are  not  done  in 
the  name  of  religion,  but  in  the  name  of  science,  of 
humanity,  of  civiUzation.  The  brotherhood  that  has 
force  and  meaning  is  no  longer  a  sectarian  brother- 
hood; it  is  larger  than  all  the  churches  combined. 

The  naturist  must  see  all  things  in  the  light  of  his 
experiences  in  this  world.  He  experiences  no  mira- 
cles; he  sees  the  cosmic  energy  as  no  respecter  of  per- 
sons; he  sees  the  rains  falHng  aUke  upon  the  just  and 
314 


SOUNDINGS 

the  unjust ;  he  sees  the  vast,  impartial,  undiscriminat- 
ing  movements  of  Nature  all  about  him;  he  learns 
that  the  land  cannot  sustain  life  without  the  fer- 
tilizing rains,  yet  he  beholds  the  clouds  pouring  out 
their  bounty  into  the  sea  just  as  freely  as  upon  the 
land;  he  beholds  the  inorganic  crushing  the  organic 
all  about  him,  and  yet  he  knows  that  the  latter  is 
nothing  without  the  former. 

If  God  and  the  universal  cosmic  forces  are  one, 
how  surely  is  God  on  both  sides  in  all  struggles,  all 
causes,  all  wars,  righteous  and  unrighteous !  We  be- 
hold warring  nations  praying  to  the  same  God  for 
victory;  we  see  this  same  God  now  apparently  favor- 
ing one  side,  now  the  other,  and  we  are  bewildered. 
Our  theology  takes  us  beyond  sounding^.  But  the 
naturist  is  not  bewildered;  he  can  read  the  riddle  and 
reconcile  the  contradictions.  Napoleon  (if  it  was 
Napoleon)  was  right  when  he  said  that  God  was  on 
the  side  of  the  heaviest  artillery  —  the  more  power, 
the  more  God. 

This  may  be  a  hard,  chilling  gospel;  it  is  like 
going  naked  into  the  storm;  but  how  can  we  deny 
it?  Can  we  refuse  to  face  it? 


XV 

THE  POET  OF  THE  COSMOS 

THE  world  has  had  but  one  poet  of  the  cosmos, 
and  that  was  Whitman.  His  mind,  his  sym- 
pathies, sweep  through  a  wider  orbit  than  those  of 
any  other.  I  am  bold  enough  to  say  frankly  that  I 
look  upon  him  as  the  greatest  personality  —  not 
the  greatest  intellect,  but  the  most  symbolical  man, 
the  greatest  incarnation  of  mind,  heart,  and  soul, 
fused  and  fired  by  the  poetic  spirit  —  that  has  ap- 
peared in  the  world  during  the  Christian  era. 
In  his  lines  called  "Kosmos"  he  describes  himself: 

"Who  includes  diversity,  and  is  Nature, 

Who  is  the  amplitude  of  the  earth,  and  the  coarseness  and  sexual- 
ity of  the  earth,  and  the  great  charity  of  the  earth,  and  the 
equiUbrium  also. 

Who  has  not  look'd  forth  from  the  windows,  the  eyes,  for  noth- 
ing, or  whose  brain  held  audience  with  messengers  for 
nothing, 

Who  contains  believers  and  disbelievers,  who  is  the  most 
majestic  lover, 

WTio  holds  duly  his  or  her  triune  proportion  of  realism,  spiritual- 
ism, and  of  the  esthetic,  or  intellectual. 

Who,  ha\nng  consider'd  the  body,  finds  all  its  organs  and  parts 
good. 

Who,  out  of  the  theory  of  the  earth,  and  of  his  or  her  body,  under- 
stands by  subtle  analogies  all  other  theories. 

The  theory  of  a  city,  a  poem,  and  of  the  large  politics  of  these 
States; 

316 


THE  POET  OF  THE  COSMOS 

Who  believes  not  only  in  our  globe  with  its  sun  and  moon,  but  in 

other  globes  with  their  suns  and  moons. 
Who,  constructing  the  house  of  himself  or  herself,  not  for  a  day 

but  for  all  time,  sees  races,  eras,  dates,  generations. 
The  past,  the  future,  dwelling  there,  like  space,  inseparable  to 

gether." 

Let  me  say  at  once  that,  whatever  else  "Leaves 
of  Grass"  may  be,  it  is  not  poetry  as  the  world  uses 
that  term.  It  is  an  inspired  utterance,  but  it  does 
not  fall  under  any  of  the  usual  classifications  of 
poetry.  Lovers  of  Whitman  no  more  go  to  him  for 
poetry  than  they  go  to  the  ocean  for  the  pretty  shells 
and  pebbles  on  the  beach.  They  go  to  him  for  con- 
tact with  his  spirit;  to  be  braced  and  refreshed  by 
his  attitude  toward  life  and  the  universe;  for  his 
robust  faith,  his  world-wide  sympathies,  for  the 
breadth  of  his  outlook,  and  the  wisdom  of  his  utter- 
ances. 

Whitman  is  first  and  last  a  seer  and  a  philosopher, 
but  his  philosophy  is  incarnated  in  a  man;  it  is  fluid 
and  alive;  it  breathes  and  talks,  and  loves  and 
breeds;  it  nurses  the  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  in 
the  hospitals;  it  makes  him  the  friend  and  brother 
of  all  types  of  humanity,  of  the  outcast  woman  not 
less  than  of  the  man  or  woman  of  perfect  blood: 

"  Not  till  the  sun  excludes  you  do  I  exclude  you. 

Not  till  the  waters  refuse  to  glisten  for  you  and  the  leaves  to 

rustle  for  you,  do  my  words  refuse  to  glisten  and  rustle 

for  you. 


317 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

"Whoever  you  are!  you  are  he  or  she  for  whom  the  earth  is  solid 

and  liquid. 
You  are  he  or  she  for  whom  the  sun  and  moon  hang  in  the  sky. 
For  none  more  than  you  are  the  present  and  the  past. 
For  none  more  than  you  is  immortality." 

My  studies  of  nature  and  of  the  universe  help  me 
to  understand  Whitman  much  more  than  does  my 
reading  of  literature  itself. 

Whitman  is  rapt  and  thrilled  when  he  looks  up 
to  the  midnight  sky.  His  very  style  is  orbicular  and 
concentric.  The  scientific  aspects  of  astronomy  do 
not  engage  him  for  a  moment,  any  more  than  they 
did  the  old  Hebrew  prophets;  his  science  becomes 
human  emotion.  He  is  the  human  soul  matching 
itself  against  the  starry  hosts,  coping  with  them  and 
absorbing  them: 

•'This  day  before  dawn  I  ascended  the  hill  and  look'd  at  the 

crowded  heaven. 
And  I  said  to  my  spirit.  When  we  become  the  enf aiders  of  those  orbs. 

and  the  pleasure  and  knowledge  qf  everything  in  them,  shall 

we  be  filled  and  satisfied  then  f 
And  my  spirit  said.  No,  we  but  level  that  lift  to  pass  and  continue 

beyond." 

Is  there  not  more  than  astronomy  in  these  pas- 
sages? 

"  I  open  my  scuttle  at  night  and  see  the  far-sprinkled  systems. 
And  all  I  can  see  multiplied  as  high  as  I  can  cypher  edges  but  the 
rim  of  the  farther  system. 

Wider  and  wider  they  spread,  expanding,  always  expanding. 
Outward  and  outward  and  forever  outward. 
318 


THE  POET  OF  THE  COSMOS 

My  sun  has  his  sun  and  round  him  obediently  wheels. 
He  joins  with  his  partners  a  group  of  superior  circuit. 
And  greater  sets  follow,  making  specks  of  the  greatest  inside 
them." 

Again  he  says: 

"  It  is  no  small  matter,  this  round  and  delicious  globe,  moving  so 
exactly  in  its  orbit  for  ever  and  ever,  without  one  jolt,  or 
the  untruth  of  a  single  second." 

He  is  filled  with  "the  great  thoughts  of  space  and 
eternity,"  and  common  things  assume  new  mean- 
ings in  his  eyes: 

"I  lie  abstracted  and  hear  the  meanings  of  things  and  the  reason 

of  things. 
They  are  so  beautiful  I  nudge  myself  to  listen." 

Who  before  Whitman  ever  drew  his  poetic,  his 
aesthetic,  and  ethical  standards  from  the  earth, 
from  the  sexuality,  from  the  impartiality  of  the 
earth,  or  his  laws  for  creations  from  the  earth?  Only 
the  wisest  readers  are  prepared  for  their  unUterary 
flavor: 

"  I  swear  there  can  be  no  greatness  or  power  that  does  not  emu- 
late those  of  the  earth. 

There  can  be  no  theory  of  any  account  unless  it  corroborates  the 
theory  of  the  earth. 

No  politics,  song,  religion,  behavior,  or  what  not,  is  of  account, 
unless  it  compare  with  the  amplitude  of  the  earth. 

Unless  it  face  the  exactness,  vitality,  impartiality,  rectitude  of 
the  earth." 

We  all  see  in  Whitman,  as  we  see  in  Nature,  what 
we  bring  the  means  of  seeing.  Readers  of  him  are 
319 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

likely  to  see  their  own  limitations  for  the  Umitations 
of  Whitman.  It  is  as  if  we  thought  that  the  length  of 
our  sounding-line  was  the  measure  of  the  ocean's 
depth.  It  may  be  so,  but  it  is  not  always  so.  A  man 
of  strict  moral  and  ethical  ideas,  according  to  con- 
ventional standards,  will  find  Whitman  rank  with 
original  sin.  Is  not  Nature  rank  with  the  same 
form  of  evU?  Whitman  did  not  shrink  from  natural 
tests.  Naturalism  was  the  essence  of  his  religion. 

Nothing  out  of  place  is  good,  nothing  in  its  place  is  bad." 

But  the  good  in  Nature  is  vastly  more  than  the 
evil,  else  you  and  I  would  not  be  here,  and  the 
good  in  Whitman  is  vastly  more  than  the  evil,  or 
he  would  have  been  forgotten  long  ago. 

Evil,  as  we  use  the  term,  attends  all  great  things. 
Evil  —  some  man's  evil  —  comes  out  of  the  sun- 
shine, the  rains,  the  protecting  snows.  One  of  our 
poets  objects  to  Whitman's  saying  that  evil  is  just 
as  perfect  as  good.  Whitman  does  not  say  it  is  just 
as  desirable,  but  just  as  perfect.  Are  not  these  things 
we  call  evil  perfect  —  snakes,  nettles,  thorns,  vol- 
canoes, earthquakes?  Is  not  a  fungus  as  perfect  as  a 
rose?  —  a  toad  as  perfect  as  a  bird?  Each  obeys  its 
own  law.  The  germs  of  typhoid  fever  and  of  pneu- 
monia are  just  as  perfect  as  the  germs  that  favor  us. 
Whitman  said: 

*'I  permit  to  speak  at  every  hazard  Nature  without  check,  with 
original  energy." 

320 


THE  POET  OF  THE  COSMOS 

The  hazards  are  great,  but  the  stakes  are  great 
also.  Readers  who  cannot  stand  an  utterance  of  this 
sort  should  go  to  Pollock's  "  Course  of  Time,"  or 
Young's  "Night  Thoughts,"  or  Dr.  Holland's  "Bit- 
ter Sweet." 

Whitman  bares  his  mind  and  soul  to  us  as  he 
bares  his  body.  There  are  no  masks  or  disguises. 
His  inmost  heart  is  as  nude  as  his  anatomy.  Nothing 
is  dressed  up.  No  fashionable  tailoring  at  all.  There 
is  nowhere  the  air  of  the  studied,  the  elaborated. 
When  other  poets  stand  before  the  mirror.  Whitman 
looks  off  at  the  landscape,  or  goes  and  bathes  and 
admires  himself.  Or,  to  vary  the  image,  when  other 
poets  distill  perfumes,  Whitman  aims  to  give  us  the 
fresh  breath  of  the  unhoused  air.  In  this  respect  he 
stands  alone  among  modern  English-speaking  poets. 
He  is  the  air  of  the  hills  and  the  shore,  and  not  of  a 
flower  garden,  or  of  a  June  meadow,  or  of  parlors. 
That  is  what  disappoints  people.  He  aims  at  beauty 
no  more  than  a  wood  or  a  river  or  a  lake  or  a  jungle 
does.  His  aim  is  to  tally  Nature. 

It  was  my  rare  good  fortune  to  know  this  quiet, 
sympathetic,  tolerant  man  for  more  than  thirty 
years,  and  to  walk  or  saunter  with  him  at  all  seasons 
and  hours.  Often  at  night  he  would  stop  and  gaze 
long  and  silently  at  the  stars,  and  then  resume  his 
walk.  He  was  an  easy-going,  lethargic  man  —  noth- 
ing strenuous  about  him,  never  in  a  hurry,  never 
disturbed  or  excited,  always  in  good  humor,  cleanly, 
321 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

clad  in  gray,  with  a  fresh,  florid  complexion,  large, 
broad,  soft  hands,  blue-gray  eyes,  gray-haired  and 
gray -bearded.  He  was  fond  of  children  and  old  peo- 
ple. What  a  contrast  were  his  placid  and  easy-going 
ways  to  the  astronomic  sweep  and  power  of  his 
poems,  his  spirit  darting  its  solar  rays  to  the  utmost 
bounds  of  the  universe.  When  I  was  with  him  I  did 
not  feel  his  mighty  intellect,  I  felt  most  his  human- 
ity, his  primitive  sympathy,  the  depth  and  inten- 
sity of  his  new  democratic  character,  perhaps  also 
that  in  him  which  led  Thoreau  to  say  that  he  sug 
gested  something  a  little  more  than  human. 

Whitman's  attitude  toward  Nature  stands  out  in 
contrast  to  that  of  all  other  poets,  ancient  or  mod- 
ern. It  was  not  that  of  the  poet  who  draws  his 
themes  from  Nature,  or  makes  much  of  the  gentler 
and  fairer  forms  of  wood  and  field,  spring  and  sum- 
mer, shore  and  mountain,  as  has  been  so  largely  the 
custom  of  poets  from  Virgil  down.  Take  all  the  Na- 
ture lyrics  and  idyls  out  of  English  and  American 
poetry,  and  how  have  you  impoverished  it,  how 
many  names  would  suffer !  Nor  does  Whitman's  at- 
titude in  any  degree  conform  to  the  worshipful  atti- 
tude of  Wordsworth  and  so  many  other  poets  since 
his  time.  He  did  not  humanize  Nature  or  read 
himself  into  it;  he  did  not  adorn  it  as  a  divinity; 
he  did  not  see  through  it  as  through  a  veil  to  spirit- 
ual realities  beyond,  as  Emerson  so  often  does; 
he  did  not  gather  bouquets,  nor  distill  the  wild  per- 
322 


THE  POET  OF  THE  COSMOS 

fumes  in  his  pages;  he  did  not  fill  the  lap  of  earth 
with  treasures  not  her  own  —  all  functions  of  true 
poetry,  we  must  admit,  and  associated  with  great 
names.  Yet  he  made  more  of  Nature  than  any  other 
poet  has  done;  he  saw  deeper  meanings  in  her  for 
purposes  of  both  art  and  life;  but  it  was  Nature  as  a 
whole  —  not  the  parts,  not  the  exceptional  phases, 
but  the  total  scheme  and  unfolding  of  things. 

He  sings  more  in  terms  of  personality,  of  democ- 
racy, of  nationalism,  of  sex,  of  i^nmorti^lltY■  of  com^_ 
jradeship;  more  of  the  general,  the  continuous,  the 
world-wide;  more  of  wholes  and  less  of  parts,  more 
of  man  and  less  of  men.  His  religion  takes  no  ac- 
count of  sects  and  creeds,  but  arises  from  the 
contemplation  of  the  soul,  of  the  Eternal,  of  the  uni- 
verse. We  do  not  get  the  solace  and  the  companion- 
ship with  rural  nature  in  Whitman  that  we  get  in 
the  modem  nature  poets.  With  them  we  admire  the 
"violet  by  a  mossy  stone,"  or  the  pretty  shell  on  the 
seashore;  with  Whitman  we  saunter  on  the  hills,  or 
inhale  the  salt  air  of  the  seashore,  or  our  minds  open 
under  the  spread  of  the  midnight  skies  —  always 
the  large,  the  elemental,  the  processional,  the  mod- 
ern. The  scholarly,  the  elaborated,  the  polished,  the 
architectural,  the  Tennysonian  perfume  and  tech- 
nique, the  Wordsworthian  sweet  rusticity  and  af- 
fihation  with  fells  and  groves,  the  Emersonian  mys- 
ticism and  charm  of  the  wild  and  the  sequestered, 
were  not  for  him  or  in  him;  nor  the  epic  grandeur  of 
323 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Milton,  the  dramatic  power  of  Shakespeare,  nor, 
usually,  the  lyric  thrill  of  many  of  the  minor  poets. 
You  embark  on  an  endless  quest  with  Whitman; 
not  on  a  picnic,  nor  a  "day  off,"  but  a  day-by-day 
and  a  night-by-night  journey  through  the  universe: 

"  I  tramp  a  perpetual  journey. 

My  signs  are  a  rain-proof  coat,  good  shoes,  and  a  staff  cut  from 

the  woods. 
No  friend  of  mine  takes  his  ease  in  my  chair, 
I  have  no  chair,  no  church,  no  philosophy, 
I  lead  no  man  to  a  dinner  table,  library,  or  exchange. 
But  each  man  and  each  woman  of  you  I  lead  upon  a  knoll. 
My  left  hand  hooking  you  round  the  waist. 
My  right  hand  pointing  to  landscapes  of  continents  and  the 

public  road. 

Not  I,  not  any  one  else  can  travel  that  road  for  you. 
You  must  travel  it  for  yourself." 

He  who  can  bring  to  Whitman's  rugged  and  flow- 
ing Unes  anything  like  the  sympathy  and  insight 
that  beget  them,  will  know  what  I  mean.  Our  mod- 
ern nature  poets  are  holiday  flower-gatherers  beside 
this  inspired  astronomer,  geologist,  and  biologist, 
all  in  one,  sauntering  the  streets,  loitering  on  the 
beach,  roaming  the  mountains,  or  rapt  and  silent 
under  the  midnight  skies.  When,  now,  in  my  old  age, 
I  open  his  pages  again  and  read  the  "Song  of  the 
Open  Road,"  "Crossing  Brooklyn  Ferry,"  "The 
Song  of  the  Broad-Axe,"  "This  Compost,"  "Walt 
Whitman,"  "Great  are  the  Myths,"  "Laws  for 
Creation,"  and  scores  of  others,  I  seem  to  be  present 
324 


THE  POET  OF  THE  COSMOS 

at  the  creation  of  worlds.  I  am  in  touch  with  primal 
energies.  I  am  borne  along  by  a  tide  of  life  and  power 
that  has  no  parallel  elsewhere  in  literature.  It  is  not 
so  much  mind  as  it  is  personality,  not  so  much  art 
as  it  is  Nature,  not  so  much  poetry  as  it  is  the  earth, 
the  sky.  Oh,  the  large,  free  handling,  the  naked 
grandeur,  the  elemental  sympathy,  the  forthright- 
ness,  and  the  power!  Not  beauty  alone,  but  mean- 
ings, unities,  profundities;  not  merely  the  bow  in 
the  clouds,  but  the  clouds  also,  and  the  sky,  and  the 
orbs  beyond  the  clouds.  A  personal,  sympathetic, 
interpretive  attitude  toward  the  whole  of  Nature, 
claiming  it  all  for  body  and  mind,  drawing  out  its 
spiritual  and  aesthetic  values,  forging  his  laws  for 
creation  from  it,  trying  his  own  work  by  its  stand- 
ards, and  seeking  to  emulate  its  sanity,  its  impartial- 
ity, and  its  charity. 

Whitman  wrote  large  the  law  of  artistic  produc- 
tions which  he  sought  to  follow: 

"All  must  have  reference  to  the  ensemble  of  the  world,  and  the 
compact  truth  of  the  world; 

There  shall  be  no  subject  too  pronounced  —  all  works  shall  illus- 
trate the  divine  law  of  indirections. 

What  do  you  suppose  creation  is? 

What  do  you  suppose  will  satisfy  the  Soul,  except  to  walk  free, 
and  own  no  superior? 

What  do  you  suppose  I  would  intimate  to  you  in  a  hundred  ways, 
but  that  man  or  woman  is  as  good  as  God? 

And  that  there  is  no  God  any  more  divine  than  Yourself? 

And  that  that  is  what  the  oldest  and  newest  myths  finally  mean? 

And  that  you  or  any  one  must  approach  creations  through  such 
laws?  " 

325 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

Whitman's  standards  are  always  those  of  Nature 
and  of  hfe.  Emerson  hung  his  verses  in  the  wind  —  a 
good  thing  to  get  the  chaff  out  of  poetry  or  wheat. 
Whitman  brings  his,  and  all  art,  to  the  test  of  the 
natural,  universal  standards.  He  read  his  songs  in 
the  open  air  to  bring  them  to  the  test  of  real  things; 
he  emulated  the  pride  of  the  level  he  planted  his 
house  by.  Always  is  his  eye  on  the  orbs,  and  on  the 
earth  as  a  whole: 

"  I  feel  the  globe  itself  swift  swimming  through  space. 
I  will  confront  the  shows  of  day  and  night, 
I  will  see  if  I  am  to  be  less  real  than  they  are." 

He  would  have  his  songs  tally  "earth's  soil,  trees, 
winds,  waves." 
"Can  your  performance  face  the  open  fields  and  the  seaside?" 

he  demands  of  those  who  would  create  the  art  of 
America. 

His  poems  abound  in  natural  images  and  objects, 
but  there  is  rarely  a  trace  of  the  method  and  spirit 
of  the  so-called  nature  poets,  some  of  whom  bedeck 
Nature  with  jewelry  and  finery  till  we  do  not  know 
her. 

In  one  of  his  nature  jottings,  written  in  1878  at 
his  country  retreat  not  far  from  Camden,  New  Jer- 
sey, he  speaks  thus  of  the  emotional  aspects  and  in- 
fluences of  Nature : 

I  too,  like  the  rest,  feel  these  modern  tendencies  (from 
all  the  prevailing  intellections,  literature,  and  poems)  to 
turn  everything  to  pathos,  ennui,  morbidity,  dissatisfac- 

326 


THE  POET  OF  THE  COSMOS 

tion,  death.  Yet  how  clear  it  is  to  me  that  those  are  not 
the  born  results,  influences  of  Nature  at  all,  but  of  our 
own  distorted,  sick,  or  silly  souls.  Here  amid  this  wide, 
free  scene,  how  healthy,  how  joyous,  how  clean  and  vigor- 
ous and  sweet! 

I  do  not  wonder  that  Whitman  gave  such  a  shock 
to  the  reading  public  sixty  years  ago.  This  return, 
in  a  sense,  to  aboriginal  Nature,  this  sudden  plunge 
into  the  great  ocean  of  primal  energies,  this  discard- 
ing of  all  ornamentation  and  studied  external  ef- 
fects of  polish  and  elaboration,  gave  the  readers  of 
poetry  a  chill  from  which  they  are  not  yet  wholly 
recovered.  The  fireside,  the  library  corner,  the  seat 
in  the  garden,  the  nook  in  the  woods:  each  and  all 
have  their  charm  and  their  healing  power,  but  do 
not  look  for  them  in  Walt  AVhitman.  Rather  expect 
the  mountain-tops,  the  surf-drenched  beach,  and 
the  open  prairies.  A  poet  of  the  cosmos,  fortified  and 
emboldened  by  the  tremendous  discoveries  and  de- 
ductions of  modern  science,  he  takes  the  whole  of 
Nature  for  his  province  and  dominates  it,  is  at  home 
with  it,  affiliates  with  it  through  his  towering  per- 
sonality and  almost  superhuman  breadth  of  sym- 
pathy. 

The  egotism  of  Whitman  was  like  the  force  of 
gravity,  like  the  poise  of  the  earth,  the  centrality  of 
the  orbs.  Nothing  could  disturb  it,  no  burden  was 
too  great  for  it  to  bear.  He  seemed  always  to  have  in 
mind  the  self-control  and  the  insouciance  of  Nature, 
327 


ACCEPTING  THE  UNIVERSE 

He  would  fain  try  himself  by  the  self-balanced  orbs. 
His  imagination  was  fired  by  the  undemonstrative 
earth;  he  would  be  as  regardless  of  observation  as  it 
was.  He  was  moved  by  the  unsophisticated  fresh- 
ness of  Nature.  He  saw  that  the  elemental  laws 
never  apologized;  he  would  emulate  the  level  he 
planted  his  house  by: 

"  these  shows  of  the  day  and  night, 
I  will  know  if  I  am  to  be  less  than  they  are." 

He  will  not  be  outfaced  by  irrational  things : 

"I  will  see  if  I  have  no  meanings,  while  the  houses  and  ships  have 

meanings, 
I  will  see  if  the  fishes  and  birds  are  to  be  enough  for  themselves, 

and  I  not  to  be  enough  for  myself. 
I  match  my  spirit  against  yours,  you  orbs,  growths,  mountains, 

brutes. 
Copious  as  you  are,  I  absorb  you  all  in  myself,  and  become  the 

master  myself." 

It  is  these  cosmic  and  natural-universal  standards 
to  which  Whitman  appeals,  that  mark  him  off  from 
all  other  poets  or  bards  who  have  yet  appeared,  and 
which,  I  hope,  justify  me  in  singling  him  out  and 
giving  him  a  place  in  this  volume. 


THE  END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .  S   .  A 


i 


f-:  iV-/^!C^^. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

"^lus  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


ID 
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llBpii 

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